[the water cycle]

listing to the right, I,
in current of alter—
in confluence where
in divergence’s 
pinkish
mud one creek
meets its clearer greener other
in mirror-form
& pollen-foam
braiding central trunk
or column over rocks 
in turbulent
geometries,
in standing
wave & broken
waveform;
each,
compressed 
in purity’s
impure & worldly
physics, each
define time &
teach endurance.

& in the ragged wake 
of own my own 
life’s twined
divergence which 
trained me 
like a dog
in motion’s ritual 
& obedience to Day 
which springs
“eternal”— like 
the yearly
trout-lilies bare
their little
teeth today at
swirling over-
arching weather
from the low-down
immobility of
rootedness & experience
the rushing river ever 
onward
upward 
over, flow 
as each
bounded molecule 
careens 
eventually
 for & towards
the wider open 
ocean’s tidal
ideal that
turbulent 
meridian 
toward which
all things flow, the 
unrelenting & bountiful &
endlessly
recombinant
sea they say

[in abeyance]

I am in abeyance as a slack-tide is
  sin-claimant— as adamant
once meant of silver & now stands
  still in tide-pools shushing sky
down & into soft
  sand as a half moon’s shy
  on a sunny day. if noon is the citadel
of reason— & to be held in; as in
  ‘I watch a black horse shadowless kneel 

in apparent prayer’
  in that foam & surf there—  then 
why must my blue horse always be
  rearing up & reflect, in parallel image 
oppositional orisons

[new view from an old boat]

cities glow under cloud-layer,
stars bright above,

as of patches of phosphorescent algae
strung under a vast, dark sea, & I

I am a pilot I guide a steel ship
along tonight’s low ecliptic

& I know which way is east
by the hunter’s knee

he is drawing his bow

I feel his bow-string’s taught vibrato
I feel the sky inhale, hold, take aim

somewhere a rabbit crouches
in low bushes, quivering with life.

it’s fast-beating heart is in me still.

he is stepping in the faint great-river
he is striding over the eastern hill

it will take a long time.

nevertheless, events
are set in motion.

all this is happening
over Dallas.

[winterwork]

a jewel so blue
as an eye is round

to put in the cracked glass pane

there is no reason to go
when there is fine

pine boards pink
in their inner rings

concentric & strong

& a saw as round
as the day is long, 

there is reason 
to stay—

<>

hard like laminar
flow is hard

to achieve is not
your choice

to aim is true as 
a standing wave is 

true as a wheel
needs truing & 

a tuning fork
tells the north wind 

of its tuning
& by which 

all instruments
are called upon 

to open, flow

;it is because of the tilt
that we have all this