Community is too syllabic for us to remember.

Our memory helps us forget within the word what we share after

and then our sense of belonging at first

a book on a roof

now

only the wind reads

it

the pages know when

turns

perhaps a name

whitewashed, open, turning over

a history

not mine, its, ours

in the wake of some quake

will we stay the sunset

or sail the sunrise?

when i break a word open it is to keep from being alone

though there is no home in one word alone

a little summer comes late too early

what ear hears

to the ground

cherries are lanterning

what word seeds itself

if neither bird nor soil wants it?

what language grows

ripe above ground

less silence

for the speaking, only

mid of some night

i blur back on words i

thought(s) were mine to raise

sometimes, the plot of community

from unnatural page comes unnatural ringing forth

to love my machinery without wanting it to be a part of

june spoon poem 1

Hey, let's tame the tundra.

We'll have a flicker of a find

trying to time our absence out there.

But, where will we signal a wick to flicker forth all our debris?

Let's be occupants of our own boat.

Look! There's the print of our hearts and a nail sailing in the snow!

How did that get into the room?

I don't know, but if our hands are certain, we can spell our names onto the bed of a board

and hang it on that single tree over there.

I think they will continue to signal themselves in the world.

I hope they can help alter the skies.

mayday poem 3

here, seasons are weathered into one day

what is cloud is fog is cloud

and can clog the light

but light is what we count of day

and day is time that is fall and also springs

mayday poem 2

i'm listening to what you are saying, can't you hear me?

but, i read your hands before i hear any words

sometimes, your hands move so slowly

so i might begin to speak with your eyes

i think that when i near your mouth i begin to hear it speaking sounds

strange to think that we depend on sounds which come from so cavernous a place in the body

causing us to distrust our eyes and hands which are ever in our sight

mayday poem 1

a voice wails outside an oral culture

when the second syllable came to my ear, i had already forgotten my name

as eyes stitch together the forgettings

words are called into naming --

for a short life

8:18am

my heart beats from wind that is a quake, an escape fire

stilled with stories, warring, we are becoming book objects

storytellers too dead to speak a word less a daguerreotype of what isn't there

9pm

if i swallow even one apple seed

i will grow into a tree

the world has never seen

8:57am

dear words, are we on speaking ground again?

dear language, i used you wrong (wronged you) again today

dear ghost, i love you for not being here, but present

12:46pm

pat me on the back for my exit,

but i'm still on leave

or some of me is still

8:33am

we no longer have to die to live in the past

and how our ghosts compete

to haunt one past

9:09am

an early mosquito circles, confused in its search for blood

a bee outside hovers, four stories too high

a sun, rare in warmth, whispering

10:23am

wine sap, sequoiadendron

tap root, root snap

winesapsequoiadendron

10:45am

how to listen to a windthrown hand?

each day cuts a new notch into my palm

we are far from wood

10:05am

i think about how we bump and graze past others in one city

i think about how we fall into and out of line in another city

all are ghosts, but (ever)present, moving with guidance, and then past, without apology