Things I Forgot to Tell You
I didn’t know beforehand that there were thirteen faces to grief
and that I’d learn, late in life, to love the hesitations of a mature Beethoven.
Be aware of profundity — that certain tree / in that certain light / after that certain rainfall half-bathes it /
intensifying it (and everything) / because of that certain northwest wind.
While you’re sleeping, you can look up to find smoke lifting, dreamlike, a great grey bird labouring
from a distant band of dark trees.
Nothing can should be taken for granted.
Love your joints (more), your ears (more), your teeth (more), love your intestines.
For bowing: allow the weight of the forehead.
For survival: allow the porousness of the body.
My presence, one day, hurried the hairy woodpecker along the deep rivulets cut into
the clay track. The empathetic room in me, raised like a chalice, rattled emptily,
as the bird staggered along, dragging its broken wing behind it.
Immerse in the pedestrian.
Rise above the quotidian.
Try every angle. Chant. Wail. Be defiantly silent. Sing.
Underneath it all, there’s a propensity for flowers to love the midden heap.
Your body is the world and isn’t.
Nights can open and open and open, a black orchid wanton for void.
There’s a door back there.
As ordinary as an elbow, I have opened it.
At times, I can still be twelve and play alone with nothing to lose but marbles.
At times, there’s a distance between my faces.
One haunts one’s own life.
Colour, sometimes, is too great for the eyes:
sunflowers, lichens, mosses, wet snag, blue jays, bone.
Inside the air, a translucent spider weaves an unyielding web of music.
There is a harmonic grace to small town pigeons.
Larry, pedaling along on his shiny metal-green bicycle, without complaint,
is obviously a great haiku master.
Uncountable times I have given up, waved hello to goodbye.
Document every moment you have as an ecstatic prisoner.
One day, the old-world dialect of grasses will bring you shuddering to your knees.
Listen for kids, new goats.
Once, beyond the possible, I saw one jump from the open window of temple ruins.
The wheel of the world keeps on turning, crushing the yoked shoulders of ordinary citizens.
Snow forgives rust. Lilacs burst from limestone.
Manatees churn slowly slowly, poets of the saddest thoughts.
The radio plays, volume down, volume up.
The intimate rhythm of the clock, tick, no tick, can mean so many dear things.
Draw nearer your life.
Cat-like skin loves light. Dog-like limbs love wool.
I don’t listen well enough. Tell me your real name!
I am [ ]!
The dictionary of days is setting.
I should have explained sooner: terpsichore, red pine, beeswax.
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