from My forests

I placed nothing
at the foot of the oak nothing
in the willow’s shade

I did not address the weak
or the powerful

I did not see the watchman
at the entrance to the sea
didn’t see the gardener gather crocus
in the spring
didn’t find
the honey and the silk

didn’t see the sky in the pond
something of solitude
nothing
that revealed the rupture

I sat
among these vast allies
voiceless
time continues
to seep into the earth
overflows the rock

the animals’ footsteps
in cadence with the light

I let myself be embraced
by the world’s slow movement
I expect nothing
from what does not tremble 



*

At the table of silence
I am this branch
that moves like the wind
without father or mother
years come from nowhere
thrust toward tomorrow

Where the void ends
I am the quivering twig
that traces an invisible path
toward the horizon
each breath
strips foliage from me
leaves me empty
like the light that also
travels toward evening


 
*

Sometimes I scrape the soil
tear out a little grass and moss
I allow my questions
to find their way
above the nothingness
they float
blanket the bare earth in cold

and sound like steps
drawing near
like the maple in flames
at the edge of its fall

 

*

You stop
at the crossroads
so that the unavowed sorrows
of all these faces
may pass through
scattered among the hours
gestures and tasks
that seed our lives


 
*

It is a time of busy insects
of numbers and letters
twisted together on the stained earth
a time when waves heave
above the waves

in our bodies
it is a time of rna
of ram of zip and cdc
nfa and vip
it is triple k
usa made in China
a time of ko
for our amazement
it is touch and go
the sound of scrap metal
tears through the landscape
like a piece of used clothing

it is refusal and rejection
a time of pixels of algorithms
that project us
onto invisible routes
with the future as promise
that the wind immediately devours
a little bark and fire
in the palm of your hand
it is chimera
and dream of nothing at all
a century of browbeaten questions

the edge of a cliff
where our poems fall
and the snow
teaches us to lose
all that will be lost



*

Often I bow
before this unique face
this play of leaves and branches

thin scar in the bark
burl in hardwood
the tree does not escape its suffering
it is nothing but itself

with the slow respiration of seasons
it looks through the wind’s eyes

through its roots
and the rings of years
it knows nothing

and I bow again
so I can listen to its unmoving voyage