​The world of gods and ziggurats
Of sacred snakes and elephants,
Clings to clams and mountains,
To all of nature’s ravishments

And nature staggers with her lees
Her health hampered by degrees,
In stacks of knowledge and of gain,
And gnawed by evil and disease,

The cosmos that envelops us
Until the end of time and space
Is merely a floorboard at
The bottom of the grand staircase.

And we are either here or there,
Until we turn and we are both
And we are on the Dolomite
And in the scrubby undergrowth.

​The kind of life we’re leading
(Not just the books we’re reading)
Is radiating light 
(Even if sweat is beading)

Upon our recognizing
God. And the lines reach up
But they remain
Clustered in the narrow cup,

The cup is our mind,
Our core and our facade,
Our heart, and from my flesh
I will see God.

And we must scrub
The upper windows, we
See the Godly waves
That rise upon the quay,

Because polishing the windows
Is itself life and all of its
Moods. So we see where the mud
Seeps down into the pits,

We see the falcon swept
On an unending rise,
We hear the praise
Of the faithful and wise.

​There are a few, here and there,
Sprinkled or folded in
This country, county,
A fire wrapped in skin,

Volcanoes rise,
Pyroclastic rivers flow,
And still these souls appear
Immense and slow,

But they are filled
With ideal good
That rages threatens
Their neighborhood,

Such forests are bursting
Within them, bristlecone
Pines, foaming streams,
Cougars, glistening limestone,

Day to day speaks, crow
And whippoorwill.
And they do God’s will:
The firebell and the daffodil.

​I have an idea. It looks like 
Two black holes colliding
Or like an orange or like
Tectonic plates sliding.

These lines of longitude
These galactic filaments
Distress the soul and
Only show her lineaments.

Before there were atoms,
There was plasma,
The molecules emerge 
From the miasma,

And after the chains
Of the the swing 
Of my thoughts smear
Beyond patterning

Their soul is freed
Flying above the shale,
The volcanic rock,
The sedimentary trail,

But here we may err,
And with our heart swollen
We spoil the fruit, our
Actions accidents or stolen

And we think that we shall free
The taste of the berry,
And advance its growth, we think
That we are visionary,

Only the power of creation
Dissolves the grain,
Frees the soul, 
Releases the crane.

It dances in the orange 
Dawn. Chase away the fox
That gnaws the grapes
And terrifies the peacocks.

​Everything we make
That reflects
Who we are
With our moods and dialects

Comes from the source
Of the soul and comes
From the littered streets
Of decaying slums.

They call each other
Without cease,
Until their longitudes
Meet and release

Light: of being alive
Or of being—being,
Or of wisdom, of 
Far sight’s seeing,

Or of singing, or of
The “is” that emerges
And that shines. And 
The blue sea surges

And reaches the sky
With sapphire glints.
They leave indigo traces
And cobalt hints.

​An empty hole is filled
By substance that is true,
Which is a web of light,
Which is a bed of dew,

Which ties together galaxies
In strands and spatter
And mysterious connections
From the nest of dark matter.

Every deviation and travail
Every ruin of a one-time trail
Or an abandoned road
Are the shell of the snail.

When the islands align with the sea
And the rivers with the hills
And the van Allen belts
Create curtains of aerial rills,

The falcon pulls itself up in the sky,
And the Coriolis effect
Creates every whorl on this world
Of gladness and intellect.

​It may be described
(if it may be described)
As pain, or strain,
An elixir imbibed,

The tearing away
Of the mind from the flesh
Where the bond is alive,
Sensitive and fresh,

To a planet that is pale
And noble and pure,
Where the soul walks freely
Through an open door

And it may be described
(for it may be described)
As peace and flight,
As an elixir imbibed,

These pangs of love
When you wish to create,
Lead to its sights
That levitate,

And the scraping of skin
And blind, dark guessing,
And clumsy intent
Will lead to blessing


“Enlightened” lozenges
Without any ache,
Lose the light of the morning
And crack and break.

​The contours of the earth
The wrinkles of the sea
With their arthropods
Contain infinity.

Within the gut and liver,
The enzymes catalyze,
And acids come to life
Before the cosmos dies.

The scent of wisdom floats,
Encompasses the earth.
We mix them both together,
The boundless and the girth,

Of Einstein and of Bohr,
Of heaven and of ore,
Of galaxies and crystals,
And ships pull from the shore.

​I must wait, and wait,
When will the spirit drop
On me like a bag of sand,
And I’ll produce a crop

Of new fruits, I’ll
Contemplate, I’ll think,
I’ll sing, my light
Is in the clink.

Why, from the cave
Halfway up the cliff,
The soul is singing
Its ongoing riff,

She’s wearing
Colorful clothes
That look good in action
Or happy repose,

She has an extensive
View, a sunshade,
An afternoon breeze,
An orangeade.

How can I scramble up
To meet her, to
See if not her, 
Her steps, pursue

The whoosh of wings,
To hear her
Speech, to smell
Her lavender?

Because it is not
At this or that
Hour, wearing
This or that hat,

That she is creating
Wisdom and thought,
Song and speech,
Swift or taut,

But it’s all the time
That rivers, that streams,
Of milk and honey
Of unceasing dreams

Are flowing, are talking,
Are shining, are singing,
From an infinite source
Their echoes ringing. 

​The whole world takes up
A coffee cup, red or
Blue or yellow, and in it
Are the gecko and the monitor,

Also photons, amplitude,
The earth of the tabernacle,
The line of a foggy horizon,
The eye of the common grackle