i. he, loose and aloft, in the desert
He was something loose at the edges he was
all untied and open at his perimeters his
waving borders so loose in the wind fitting
that he would look so flyaway so somewhere
absent from here where you saw him
He was something loose at the edges he was
all untied and open at his perimeters his
waving borders so loose in the wind fitting
that he would look so flyaway so somewhere
absent from here where you saw him
These are the branches that came out
of his mouth his voice bloomed with trees
dogwood and mistletoe tumbled from his
vocal strings minute wires clung to trembling
green vibrato but he spoke through nets
of leaves often his voice caught in the foliage
Where did you come from dark-eyed waif?
Wanderer where did you ask the sun
for directions with his hands clasped he's
holding moon under his tongue --tree man
so inexorable in his carcas why did he
loose his ivory tongue on the hills?
The crows crawled up then they dug
their hooked wings into the earth hard nails
that scratched on limestone toward him
black smothering rings spun slow ascent
but he was in the desert the implacable
desert and the open --which was like
a door--was more the frame of his
wilderness than the scrawling emptiness
so through the door he stepped leaving
the crows to ground facing wilderness
and howling wind all the sun ever said was that
he could climb his own vines to find a resting
place that all the world was simply a door
to the next moment the next spoke of the wheel
he had never felt so loose even the wind
was slow behind him the crows laughing
at themselves when he walked through desert doors
keeping the moon under his tongue so as not
to disturb the air or perhaps keep the door open
propping it with the green branches swaying
from his throat he was sprouting
there on the desert’s side of the open door
all doors are open spaces that his moon-dyed
tongue might move through seeking
the path to sun the path to sand
rock limestone crawling beneath his feet
roots solidly wound into cracks
ii. The moon from under his tongue
I am sheltered in the under universe
of my hands
here all beginnings
are my roots all circles
ending in each other
I have harnessed the hills
in my veins I have caught
the nets of air in my heartstrings
I am both
the intertwining voices of male/
female even here
in the implacable desert
the broad unmarkable desert
my water runs deeper
and I open doors
like pearls that run on water
cleaving tenuous valleys
where trees grow where
deep drinking trees find water
deep drinking from my upturned hands
in half the shape of a wheel
in half the shape of a moon of water
each circumference fit
to the other each wheel
in a wheel moon
in a moon
under my upturned universe
gleaming under my upturned sky
& reflected in the sure disk
that I shed on the hills
even the impossible desert
that I might grow there a tree
to reach its branches up
& mingle with the facing sky
this is the song of the upturned universe the song of the bear
crow and serpent writhing in the grass
making shadows in the sand beneath my feet
under my moon tongue leashed
under my moon tongue
gathered in my moon and water hands
can you dance with me under the water sun ride
the hills with me unleashed
take my riven hands the ones with which I loosed the moon
loosed myself on the broken hills
to dance with bear and crow and serpent
here in the light of the crossed and silver moon
I wrote on the sky with my blood
and found poetry in the steeping stars
I bled poetry
from my heart I drew it
from my blood my seeping blood
my seeping poetry blood on the walk
on the walls
I wrote language on the stars
twisting them into sounds or messages
on the blue canvas sky
the sky of the
iii. wide implacable god
she brings water out of the upturned hills.
They are like bowls that she fashions in clay,
that she draws from her skin
stretched over her aching, spinning bones.
She is aching with song,
with the poetry of her blood;
she spills it
to mark her place in the ground.
She is flourishing there.
The crows are living in her branches—
she, the wide implacable god
of the desert.
Her abundant arms are livid
with thriving voices, white
as though they might burst
with the electricity of her singing.
