1.
Shattered whelk shell on the shore,
brick rounded from waves alongside,
wood from ship or dock long destroyed;
algae clinging to them all says
that origin doesn’t matter anymore —
all that counts is here and now:
here, in the wreckage; now,
in the moment of wreckage.

2.
Vines are growing through
the stripped, twisted frame
of your car in the junkyard.

3.
The solstice sun strikes the stone
it is designed to strike
every year.

Or perhaps the earth
has shifted,
the megaliths have moved,
and it’s hitting 
the same unintended stone 
every year in the same spot.

4.
That sound from the beach?
My low wailing at the end
of the longest day of the year.

I’d hoped you’d be in the waves,
in what the waves bring to shore,
but I haven’t found you yet

though I’ve seized on small things
that seemed to offer hope until
I saw them in the right light.

I wonder what it’s going
to be like.  

Will there be a path like a 
trail over a mountain pass?

Is there a darkness
that will be lifted, or

one that will fall?
How will I know 

it’s happened,
how do I know

it has not already
happened once, twice,

a million times
in a million years? 

I want to know
but am scared to learn

although I expect that
when I do learn, it will be

as if nothing has happened
and I’ll shrug it off, say

I wonder if I’ll know
when the next thing happens

after this one, or will I 
remain as always

in this state,
this bewildered push

through the mist around
Truth and Understanding

until the Wheel stops
and I stop as well

and stand there, quietly
waiting for Someone 

who may never come
to explain it at last?

Last night
came and went and
I’m still here
at daybreak. 
A bit of a 
surprise: never sure
these days if I
will be, but so far,
I’m holding on.

Not sure why
I’m so certain 
that when it happens
I’ll die in my
sleep. Just as possible
that I’ll fall face first into 
the dirty livingroom

or be discovered
sitting upright
and quite stiff
on the couch,
laptop hibernating
with a mediocre new poem
unfinished under the darkness
on the screen,
the cat anxiously
weaving her fear against
my legs and the window
still open,
some small breeze trickling
through my hair.
Will my eyes still be open?
I would hate to think so.
Whenever I visualize
my demise,
I’m asleep. I don’t want
to see it coming.
Would rather be surprised
to wake up, if in fact
this is how it happens,
in a new existence
with no sense 
of impending transition.
I mean, when I die 
it should reflect
how I’ve always lived: 
shiftlessly, a lazy drifter, 

shocked by things
everyone else
sees coming 
miles and years away.

A gun, a mouth,
a hot farewell.

A moment on the lips
and then,
the long missing begins.

After it’s done — in 
less than a split
of a second of noting
the start of the roar of 
the gun — 

after it’s done 
is there anything? Regret,
joy? Release, terror, a welcome
blankness?

Insatiable curiosity
is not enough to take me
there and fear is barely enough

to keep me here. I tug 
and am tugged but I am

going to wait.

Asking, for a friend, for there to be a fast end.
Asking for a beloved to lower those crepe-paper lids.
Asking for a mere handful of tears, barely enough to water a seed.
Asking for the door to the dying-room to close firmly behind with barely a sound.

Asking for the body to be washed clean and gently smudged with herb-smoke.
Asking that it be dressed in its customary work clothes, so that it is familiar to those who saw it daily.

Asking for a swift service, a musical show, a feast, a dance.
Asking for there to be no long and loud mourning unless it changes into laughter and back again.
Asking for there to be no burial on land.
Asking for it to be raised on a rough platform and left in the open air.
Asking for the bones to be picked and gnawed.
Asking for the remains to be bleached and powdered in the gold-white sun.

Asking that whatever is left be placed into a river near its delta.
Asking that we spare those bones the tumbling from source to the sea.
Asking for enough time to let them dissolve before swimming there again.
Asking that the name be slowly forgotten.

Asking for someone to open the dying room someday.
Asking, for a friend, that this only should be done

so a baby may be born there.

Seeking peace,
absolution,
redemption,

I slept for hours.

It did not work. 

I awoke unchanged.
I lay down again
in the still-dark 
of the post-dawn
bedroom; lay dreaming,
wishing myself  
toward some penance
to excuse myself,
some vision
to explain myself, 
some pain to serve
as sacrifice
and re-admission fee;

nothing worked.  

I was not released though
I flew, long flights
over grand countries
where I could not touch down,
cities and forests
full of safety below;

nothing worked.

What works?  
I ask the sky and 
all the soil, I ask
all the waters.

If I have to sleep
longer, I will. If I have to 
wake into fire, I will.
If peace is only to be found
in a crash
and my own ashes,
I will burn,

for I have been flying 
in my sleep seeking
what works 
all my life
and half into
the next
and I do not think
I can believe 
in a safe landing
anymore.

New poem.

The blessing 
I’ve awaited is 
not yet in sight

but there is
a promise of it
in a shadow ahead of us.

I shall not
rush toward it.
Instead,

let’s see what birds
come toward us
from that potential home,

let’s see what the sea
offers us 
as we tack closer,

let’s feel something
like hope and regret 
co-mingled

until we are ready to land
and shift from past and future 
into present.

I have waited this long
to see it looming there;
so little time to wait now,

so little to fear now
as we approach, and I will not
speak for all of us

but I will say that
I am curious enough
for all of us. Lend me your eyes,

lend me your ears
if you are afraid;
lend me all your senses.

I can take it all on for you 
if it will ease 
your remaining way.