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A WAY IN

paint peels from wood
siding after a long winter

both objective and sincere, try
to loosen a decades-long emphasis
on singular meaning

sweet voice
fanged only at the pauses
see: white rabbit’s foot

practice radical hospitality
see the sacred embedded
in the structures of nature

an ice storm caused
many trees to split
stainless blade engraved

close eyes bat lashes
blur against the pastoral
blur against the past

dust the piano
sweep sawdust
onto freshly fallen snow

pure un-pure feral
I’m a good man in a storm

BACH

What can you get in silence,

in silence you can be
totally with someone. Dead
or alive, I swear.

The work of touching
with compassion:

“to hear the cries of the wind,”
“audible, not audible.”

I apologized to someone
from forever ago. It was
very quiet, she was
very gracious.

I am thinking
of the well tempered clavier,
of an original fugue.

Trees,
trees alone.

If I could play the piano
I’d write a fugue for trees,

& for love—both alive
and dead.

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