Firelight

Staring at the fire, I am
warming. Wonder if the sticks will
soon forgive the fire, if the
fire thanks the wood that quickly
melts to embers, maybe trying
to remember windy days of
growing at the sun.       
                                The sun has
become and landed on the trees.
Like earth, the trees are sunlight that
has cooled and coalesced, alive
because of daylight, but prepared
and going to combust or rot,
and either scatter or decay.

Recycling

I eat and still am empty, hungry for
a burst of life: the momentary or
eternal act of giving up your gift
and praying hard until the fire lifts
the smoke into the heavens high above.

The bull is fast consumed; its flesh is burned.
The beast is roaring, tethered, overturned;
the sacred victim in the pyre feeds
the mass of flesh that is humanity.
From Earth to grass to flesh to flesh to love,

and back to dust, the fields we once did run
each other through in, nourish us with some
of us, as we reiterate and skip
a couple beats, within a cosmic blip
of time and space and loneliness and come.

At War

At war, enormous symbols are

not bigger than a fist or hand

grenade. A shield is useless if

you do not wield a spear, and stand

alone against a sea of brave

and hateful enemies. At war

we are reducing things to an

absurd and truthful metaphor.

The whole idea is that I

am right because I have a sword.

The Winged Thing

 for Kellie

The winged thing aloft in flight appeared

immensely unexpectedly as if

it’d been a seed just recently within

the darkness of the Earth, and had emerged

anew and vigorous, as tall as cliffs

which plunge into the sea. Her arms outstretched

above the fertile valleys down below,

the bird traversed the arc of sky between

the brightness of the day and black of night,

the space which nothing we can see pervades,

and climbed the crumpled foothills up into

the altitudes whence she might catch a view

of what might lay beyond the mountain’s height.

If both the one and other side’s the same,

it still could be that what you see in truth’s

a beautifully-folded paper crane.

My Eyes

My eyes are made of windows.

The glass is making rainbows
in spectral boxes locked in
the boxes I put stock in.

I started looking closely;
the windows are almost me:
a choice between the same thing
and nothing but renaming.

It's either or it's nothing
at all, and God is bluffing,
because I see the truth by
reflections in my two eyes.