The move is slow
the pool is now,
like a cloud
it does not like to let you
see it move.
                           Photography
a well-known
cure for shyness.

The alarm bongs,
the sky sleeps on.

2.
Mystery of her,
sandstone syntax
in a world of shale.
O slip me freshets
squeezed tween such rock,
the planet is four-fifths water
and we thirst.

3.
What words can do to each other,
crowded bar on Friday night
or duel at dawn,
                                    o be gentle,
sentence, just for once.

4.
If a cloud
turned to stone
would it talk
like you,
tackle the intricate
messages
heartbeat by heartbeat
until even I
could understand? 

5.
The cello is silent
but the theme comes back,
flutey doorways and a wind outside,
slimmer aperture shriller tone,
the cloud is still there,
know what I mean?

6.
Do the thing and be at peace,
change your name
or I’ll change it for you,
go choose an opera,
listen soundless as you walk
half on purpose
through the dwindling wood–
all paths lead here,
this house you see
just beyond the covered well,
water maybe ripe for you.

7.
Don’t bother knowing
where you’re going—
the going knows
and that’s enough
to get you there
with lots of tales to tell.
Remember?

8.
The catapult
we called a slingshot,
the pebbles we let fly
only at things we thought
we could not hurt—
trees or boulders in the stream.
How wrong we were—
everything feels pain
only some of us complain.
The hammer once as holy as the cross.

8.
Cross?
Spirit penetrating matter,
vom Himmel hoch
the line comes down.
They meet, become
body of the perfect man
born from the heart,
the ever-virgin heart.
Something like that—
the vertical presses through
the horizontal,
heaven stands on earth.
Something like that.
The builder’s hammer,
Thursday priests,
sign in the sky. 

9.
I’m just trying to understand—
you knew I was going to say that,
I could see your lips
mouthing the words an instant
before they came out of my mouth,
everybody knows what I mean,
my great revelations
turn out to be reminders.
Clouds move slow
across the northern sky,
I can’t prove it
but they do move.

16 November 2020