Scattering Garden
The bushes bear
no seed in winter.
Mourners stand
on planks
of a wooden arch.
They release ashes
onto rocks below,
a sea of blank faces.
Spider’s Stance
An alabaster stone,
smooth as the rock which bore it
and washed it by the stream –
among grainy bits of speckled white,
stood a spider.
It turned – paused – positioned,
its body, thick and copper,
reared like a wild mustang
in the western plains.
I swallowed my fear,
careful not to exhale,
breath held in suspension.
Waited – then it hustled down into a gully
and I skipped that stone across the stream.
Form
Who pushes the wind past cheeks stinging harsh
through a window slit on desks scattering
words lying in print: neither you nor I.
Emerson’s beauty?
Frost’s dark design?
I have stood against the wind, screamed its name
as it raged destruction on rooftops, dismantled birches
to its will and stole a lover’s locket
up into concealed blankets of smoke grey.
I have welcomed the wind, whispered its name
as it swirled droplets of warm salt air,
carefully lifted a child’s kite with ease
up, up into illuminated blue.
Ideology
is a lost stranger to freedom in form
pushing forth the wind.
Dickinson’s soul may rest easily.
