What I really want to say is

that I have nothing to say
     but everything to feel
that I do know
     what I can’t say
that it is in me
     as it is in you
that my soul can talk
     to yours without words
that the earth itself is my poem
     a tiny collocation in the language
     of stars and galaxies and planets
that all the secrets of the universe
     can be expressed
     in a single line
if only I could say it.

April’s Apogee

With each act of creation
we draw ourselves closer
to that one great moment
when Creation first ItSelf-ed.

Word by word, line by line,
we, too, become ourSelves,
as each poem pulls us into
the Apotheosis of April.

Doomed

Of impending extinction a sign
is a species’ clear failure to rhyme.

The rare Purple Turtle
from the start was infertile.

And the Great Turquoise Tortoise
succumbed to rigor mortis.

Möbius Guitar

Held in my arms, a guitar.
Under my fingers, the strings.
From the strings, a chord rings out.
Within the chord, a single note.
The note riding on a wave of sound.
Each wave hilled and valleyed, rocky with overtones.
Over the next hill, a small town.
Winding through the town, a street.
On the street, a music store.
Inside the store, a guitar.
A hand, reaching for it.

At the Basilica of the Annunciation

Mother Mary lifts my eyes
and I am a child again.
My small hands slip into hers
as easy as breathing
and touch the loving callouses
where countless pilgrim hands
have rested, then carried away
infinitesimal flecks of paint,
infinite portions of blessings,
revealing, underneath the white,
the gray, and underneath the gray,
a love that has no underneath.

Five Unities

I

Shining through you,

the light in your eyes

shines through me.

II

One note struck,

and, suddenly, guitars everywhere hum

in sympathetic delight.

III

Thirty-seven trillion cells,

—thirty-seven thousand thousand thousand thousand!—

in your body.

IV

One drop becomes

a river, becomes a flood,

becomes the sea.

V

Sun and moon,

earth and wind and breath,

mind and heart.

Orchard Nocturne

Easing down, we feel the earth, its heartbeat close
within us, whispering why it willed us from our beds,
and beckoning branches dance above our doubting heads,
raising our gazes until we notice, as time slows,
celestial lights adorning the roofs of hidden chapels,
and we reach up, astronomers picking stars like apples.