tracepoetry

[tracepoetry]

(maybe later that day it rained)

a memory becomes faded and polished with overuse: wild strawberry vines remain, climbing the rail of a wooden bridge, both sprayed with water as it falls into a narrow creek.

there is no sky, any more. no voices, not even birds. the bridge is aging gray from brown, a background for the green leaves and the water's happy clamor -

here is a berry so small and sweet, and nothing else.

[tracepoetry]

(teachings from the virginia opossum volume one)

the new practical instruction: a generational knowledge - the world is made more by our existence. a hole dug into a trash bag & treasures retrieved. acting is reacting, living is surviving - a lesson, or a fortune: This year your highest priority will be Biting.

[tracepoetry]

(taking notice of an immense world)

spring feels early. dandelions pose and I oblige them, taking photos of their glowing faces. night sounds like thunderstorms, and then mornings full of the incredible noise of crows. we rest, then wake, and winter moves on. this season, like all the others, is for doing things that must be done.

[tracepoetry]

(your own voice, too)

you step out the back door and there is the woodpile, axe on the ground by a stump, waiting.

the sun rose while you slept. rabbits made decadent work of the sweet peas and birds did as much for the strawberries.

first things come first, though. you walk up the hill. there's no path, and the hill is small but steep, covered in small stones and cacti.

up here you imagine you can see all the way home, if the land was a little flatter. it's a trick of the light,

letting you see through time like this. if the wind was quieter, you could hear the call of familiar birds.

[tracepoetry]

(at the end of words)

where things make sense, where i stop trying to say anything and manage to say something

i always try to skip to the good part. not the shift of pressure but the lightning - the clear blue morning, not the flooded night

[tracepoetry]

(all the bats)

i'm not so deep in fear i can't escape and have a little joy once in a while

how close am i to being who i want? to being who i thought i'd come to be -

another twenty years dancing with you, if slower and more awkward every time

the earth exhales a soft beating of wings. how long was that breath held?

[tracepoetry]

(for pacing purposes)

i will be ignoring the inner hemingway and adding several thousand words to every project - yes especially the finished ones - they could use the breathing room

[tracepoetry]

so few words are necessary. what makes a poem better than silence? you deserve more quiet than you are given.

[tracepoetry]

as though everything matters equally - my attention, spreading love and time like fog on the landscape, a little too thin, evaporating

[tracepoetry]

(bitterhope)

someone is still alive here, in my place. in my skin. behind my mouth someone is screaming

saying: enough quiet! enough giving up. the world is already all graves. find something else.

[tracepoetry]

(become)

take the thing you fear and hold it close 'til it spills light, until it casts a shadow in the shape of your whole life

[tracepoetry]

you might as well learn something from the unpreventable - i'm tired and tripping over my own feet. rhythm lost. all up in my head again. but i think, for a minute there, i lived in my body -

the good things have never felt mis-timed, always enough grief on either side. what was the lesson? do i remember, now i'm sober? i remember dancing. did i say i love you? did i say it enough?

[tracepoetry]

(two of cups)

your lungs filling under my hand. your heart moving fire and light. in holy thirst we are tension waiting to snap.

[tracepoetry]

(a love poem without birds)

autobiography falls short of the way you talk about the things you know, like another language. like the way i talk about another language, greedily. there are never enough words to explain. oh my heart, there beating in your mirrored chest! i'm afraid to say it, but nothing has been so clear. can we be silent together?

there's a new way of sleeping, in your arms. a new way of breathing, between your lips. what i say when i get the words out of my way: that the soul is a moment of awareness, understanding the interconnection, complete and inescapable. what are you thinking about? you first. the end of the world is me without you.

[tracepoetry]

(for the white bear)

In dreams the bear tell me his stories, but never asks me about mine as we walk through a labyrinth of worries and completely lose track of the time

A city of song lies inside the well, deep in the place I can't stay. This is what grief is for. Stories to tell and memories which get in the way

Silent in diners we sat face to face over breakfasts that weren't worth the name Or silent on highways, the radio played and the road curled away down the plain

Someone will hear when I sing out our song. I hope it's only the birds. They know the melody. I'd get it wrong. They never remember the words.

[tracepoetry]

(yearning)

after the interval, up from the ground in screaming crowds

[tracepoetry]

(my world)

hold me in your infinite arms and explain how loneliness is a lie i keep believing, and gravity is love, too, a dance.