cody awoke in the night.
breath bloomed above a pillow.
the moon howled.

"who is this?"
he thought
and arose.

he put on shoes but not a shirt-
walked down to tinker's creek across
the hay field.

there, under the mountain ash,
josh looked up and smiled.

cody slipped off the shoes and
waded in waste-deep.

"you cant wash your past off
that way,"
said the watcher.

"how then?"

"bathe everything,"
he said,
"starting with me."

the stars shone.

cody enters the cave
in early morning.

temple stones lay
at the mouth,
mossy,
broken.

looking into the dark waters
within
he sees himself as many-

here the warrior,
there the thinker,
the labourer,
lover and

the poet.

there is a table there,
round
and overflowing with food
over which some
argue and fight.

the poet begins to move.

he dives to a cave within
himself, and drawing water from
its pools, he washes
the dust from each of his
friends' feet.

he sings as he does this,
deeply,
softly.

cody begins to weep at this sound
arising from within,
and as his tears fall,
the many grow silent,
stunned.

each hears the poet's song
echoing. something stirs within them.
calmed,
they dive inwardly in search of voice.

and there,
in the cool cave of their broken temples,
a poet begins to work,

singing.

those lips, (cuniform
at edge) reddened, (prosaic
melancholy) puckering, (symmetrical
enough) spending themselves
in himalayan uplift,
sunken,

tear framed.

and change begins with a grimace-
the smell of stale air
exhaling

she heads north in stead of south,
in ward in stead of out,
with subtle grace (oh
the most subtle) of
recovering clumsy,

inside out.

from one angle,
obscuring darkness,
another,
jumping shadow,
and another,

smiling shade.

the rose chimes,
reverberates,
strikes,
and shudders.

hard orange sound,
fragrant,
unlocked,
and bouyant.

sunshine-
a tingling through eye to
fingertip and through again
-moonshine

the cup,
chalice,

the clarinet.

"i am finished with knowing,"
he says,
and sets sail for home.

cities give way to indecipherable sea.
heading south,
he comes to a country of unfenced
pastures.

then night comes.
the nile flows backwards and
all the floatsam slips back upstream.

lamps flicker in windows
along shore-

vela,
carina,
puppis,

and pyxis.

the hawk arrived in a dream,
asking for that magic which
would bind the mountains where
they stood.

but the mountains gave way to meadows.
meadows became a sea.

and the sea would not stay put.

waking, she stood on the balcony and
smiled even as she wept.

there, in the street,
a dove.

i would lean down
and say to her

how bout here

and she would snort
shifting her weight left

ide slide off
cold and tired
rolling my bag out on the ground

Dear beloved grandfather,

The weather has turned to rains. Soon the snow will come again- the sixth snow since you left us. Already the air is thick and heavy with cold. The nights are long and the noisy geese travel overhead. And I think of you often.

I also think of my dad often- and though I know you never liked him- I think of you both together, now. The anniversary of his death is near, Thanksgiving night. It will be nineteen years. It's a strange thing to remember you both at the same time... perhaps it's the season. I don't know for sure. I only know that death does strange things to the minds that observe it. Everything becomes mixed up- in mourning for you I find myself equally mourning him. For myself. For humanity.

I'm tired, papa, and I wish so much that you were here to speak with me. There are so many things that I can't understand even with my heart. There are so many subtle things I cannot grasp... like why everything that seemed good and true turned out to be false. Why everything that can be said isn't worth saying- but what can't be said must be somehow communicated. I feel so heart-broken all the time now. Things that brought me happiness only make me heavy- soft and strange. I saw this in you, too, but I did not recognize it then.

I keep going back in my mind to that Christmas- the year you died. That small ceremony has changed everything- who I was before is not who walked away that day. You were there, somehow, as I trudged up that trail into the fog of the Cascades. I remember- sitting atop frozen Crystal Lake, listening to the snow fall. The only sound. I imagined the millions of people waking- opening presents. You and I alone in the mountains. Before I lit that candle and said the words, there was only snow and cold- and then- it was as if the snow was you, somehow transformed. I felt you there- in the rocks, the ice, the snow and in my own self. My hand became your hand- my face yours- my voice yours- my tears yours- and yet my own. I became, that day, unalone.

It's been years now, and I see that it was not you that came to dwell with me that day- and so I've grown to miss your form all over again. Your voice. But it was what dwelt with you that came to dwell within me. Gently, you gave me this last thing- and only by your leaving and my accepting were you able to give it.

My heart swells and overflows now- and it is not my own. Nor is it yours- but somethng else entirely- and to share this... I can only share this with you, for now. I can only deepen the gift you gave by guesswork, hope, and love. It's the only thing I have left.

Papa- I can't tell you how much you mean to me- even as I let you go. I can't begin to thank you for the impact and goodness you placed so carefully in my life. I can only hope to pass along this gift you gave as best I can and to face the fatigue that comes with it with the clues you left.

I love you profoundly,
more than any words might ever give tell,

your forever-loving son,
david