The Waterfall

We saw the waterfall
We were sitting in the canoe
It came down to join the larger river
In an uncomplaining way

Downtown, a few branches of the river
Cut unobtrusively
Through various main streets
And carry things away dutifully

The people were meditating
As they moved, I thought of trees
And against the change of seasons
And nations, I felt an underlying current

Of water

Comprehension of Love Poetry

You think that in loss in Her
I won't find my Self
So you don't understand my poetry

You apply a psychological category
Which is like using braille
To find the rivets on the Titanic

You just missed the smokestacks

You really don't understand
My love poetry at all
So, I don't think

You understand Love either

The Evening

The tears come at this time of night
They come as the sun drops below the horizon
When there is nowhere to go but home
That is when they come pouring down

Simple

In the warm evening of April
It is uncommonly warm
And everywhere women cleave to their men
Men eye their women
In preparation for
Consummation and the Harvest of love

At around this time
When the red clouds speak of the sun's going to bed
I see Your face, and I long for you
Maybe we could walk by the running stream
Maybe we could stop and get something to eat
Maybe I could be with you tonight

There are some things I want to say
That I couldn't say before
And now
Now I can

Motion

It opened and out you came
You spun in joy
Until you learned how to love
Then you loved
Until you found the Lover
Then you lay together
And you made a child

So you were three
And your meaning was one in three
And you became lost
Believing you had found yourself
In side streets where the angles
Cast favorable shadows for
The projections of Heroism

So the Lover and the Child
Stood on a windy seashore
When you grasped your tiller
Setting forth into the Sea

For centuries you sailed, finding islands
In storms, in calm, resting with strange peoples
Traversing the coasts of full
Continents, listening to the creatures
Of the sea, and learning
The way of the starry night and its direction

Until, the voyage complete, you stepped
Again to a new shore, finding
Your lover awaiting you in bed, arms open
Legs open, to retake you

You lay beside her, breathing the voyage
Through skin and scent, not through words

Waiting for the Child to come home

Liberator

She came in afraid
She was a deer, an antelope
Her fears the hunters
Of her children

So she herded them
And she covered, guarded them
And then I came
Circling, not knowing

That I was circling, uncovering
The children, and I taught her
To cut, and she cut

So then in a dream
Setting forth by my side into the night
Making use of her new-found skill
She cut evil men apart

She thanked me for this
She began to carry her sword, proudly
She grew tall, she grew proud
And began to look at me, in a different way

Until the inexorable logic of life
Which brought me to her, which uncovered her
Which killed him, caused her
To draw her sword and cut me clear down

She cut me down, and falling
I fell out of this world

Love and Death

Soren danced by the water

And yes, in the glittering light

I love her

Daniel skiis ahead of me

Into shadows under the pines

I love him

Susan drives us children

To the ferry

I love her

Steven talks with me

About things we know

I love him

My cousins share the sun with me

I love them

My friends share the mountains and seas with me

I love them

Kim gave birth to my children

I love her

Jennifer showed me my body

I love her

Melissa laughed aloud

I love her

And Elisabeth

Elisabeth

She broke my heart

Yes she did

Untimely

You set boundaries
And sitting in the grandstand
Certainly, I applaud you

Delicately - like the crowd in England
Watching tennis

And you decide to paint something
So I speak about your work

With tact, like a professor

Then you find a job, and
In the fullness of time, a spouse

At the wedding, I smile, joining the toast

All the while, I am loving her
All the while, I am preparing myself

For the grand sacrifice

You label it madness
But when you reluctantly reach
The gates of oblivion

You understand

Birth

It is coming out of my body
It is crawling out now

Its hands, though soft
Are like steel

And it cuts me open
Lays me on the threshing floor

Of memory
And cuts me completely through

From the intercourse
Of my heart and my mind

It came into being

Now, in order to be born

It is going to kill me

The Heart

The belt moves horizontally
Watching it, grey ones shuttle
From one side to the other
And colored ones dance here and there
But although they veer left
Their position always moves right

If you step off the belt
You find a second belt, and after that
Belt opon belt
And all the belts taking all of us
Off to the far horizon and then
Looping back for the different ones

And you leap, and you leap high
Thinking, just now, I'll get off this
And just now, just by giving myself
To this, or that, or to her
I'll break down
These long grinding machines running
This thing, long running
Machines, that don't stop

And so you tell yoruself a story
A story that pleases you
About those who can lay themselves down
At the feet of another
And who can then be swalloed in the gears
Never to return again

Alone

The faint humming song
Is growing now

In the trees
And by rushing water

The weeping man
Moves silently, and moves

Through life and seasons
And loses himself

Across the threshold of himself
He looks out into the sky

And finds all the shells
Broken against great stones of time