Still not posting new poems, though I’ve been writing them;  I have also been revising some very old ones — this one dates back about 15 years or so.

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when I speak to you of the way it is 
your eyes widen in surprise 

(or is that astonishment – 
the right word makes so much difference 
when one tries to describe the way it is)

how will I make you understand the way it is
when no right words exist 
to form my complete meaning

how will I shape my breath 
to swaddle you in a foil of dawn 
and seal you 
against denial and forgetting 

do you think I would still speak of love 
do you think I would speak of hearts or forever
and set atoms to move in anything 
remotely resembling those dry and familiar forms
if I had language that could make how I feel 
clearer

what I have for you is known and common
a few small words I may have offered too often 

but I promise you 
that if I had been alive in mythic times
I would have invented a language 
that would have the syllables in it I need

every word I built 
would have been a nail 
in the ark that saved all the couples of the world

the covenant bow that was revealed 
after the rain had dried 
would have colors only you 
would be able to see 

and I would have been clear enough
to have torn Babel down all on my own 

if I had the right tongue 
I would reform history 
with improbable, impossible words — 

if I had the tongue I need 
to speak my mind today
I swear I would remake the world 
in the corners of my mouth

and offer its fresh contours to you in a song of Magellan – 
the circumnavigator 
now just barely remembered
his name the leading edge of a legend
an arc of hope as we move
from known to unknown

if I could speak the words I need
I would conjure him
I would spell him into life this morning 
as we sink our toes into the cold Atlantic sand — 
look at all that horizon out there – 
its dark line the promise of unseen shores –

to reach it we will need a new vocabulary 

but this is all I can bring myself to say: 

come closer
closer
sunrise can’t be too far away