Snow tomorrow,
not first snow but
first plowable depth.

At some point tomorrow
you’ll be seated,
chin in hand, 

trying to guess
how bad the roads are
while regretting

unpurchased hot cocoa 
that would have made
for complete comfort

and safety in the living room
from which you watch 
a world slowly changing.

As things disappear into 
humps under snow
you will shake your head

at unprepared cars
slipping down hills
and around corners,

and you will feel again
the ancient fear:
what of everything I most love

will not reemerge
when this snow is gone,
when the winter is gone?

measuring my weeks

sifting through days
as if they were
lumps in a sugar bowl

examining the texture
of each rock
of particulate sweetness
hoping for a spoonful
to cure what ails me

selflessness
is so sour

not that I would know that
except in theory

as I am so offensive
and rank with my
own decades of
misguided self care

nothing tastes sweet

hidden at my core 
is a small, dim light
what you see is just my shell
going through the motions

everything that looks sincere
as well as
everything that looks
faked or false

everything that seems solid or fluid
everything that seems remotely static
that shows I’m settled for life
into the nest of my identity

every cuddly blink
all the sighs and furtive glances
at thighs and backsides
all the human moves through the fair

all that action and lust
it’s all just
a package of motions
I’m going through

every rage at insult real or imagined
every dangled bait to draw attack
every sneer and morseled-out hateful offering
to war-doctors and high priests of the blinding

just going through the motions
so the world won’t notice
the dead lamp within
still stale and cold

everything I do out here
is motion — is lies
masturbatory once
now tedious hideous and old

dim light within like
a salt lamp rimed with dust
I tried to shine brightly once
but failed and started this pantomime

now and then thinking
my motions have become me
and I them
I’ve begun to forget my light 

it remains within 
and continues to dim 
but now and then it flares
I cannot predict or explain when

but when it does happen
I stop moving for a short time
and try to remember which I am 
the shadows of my motions or the light 

slow misstepping

arrhythmic
plodding to
the near-end

saying 
it all 
by saying nothing
directly

this is 
how it’s done

and it is

You are going to be fine,
they tell you; you are going
to find the bridge inside you
and cross your gaps. You are
about to see stones in the stream
before you and perceive all at once
that there is a path across
with only a few scary leaps. 

You are going to be fine,
they tell you; between
the appearance of the bridge
and the revelation of the stones
your agony must stem
from a choice you made
to have it in your life
as a lesson, as pain for gain
to help you find the path.

You are going to be fine,
they tell you; they say
you are in all the right places
at once: on this side of the stream,
with the bridge and the wet stones
between you and the far bank;
already through the worst of it
and on the other bank, weakly
dancing; with your pain holding you 
tight as you make the journey
no matter which way you choose.

You are going to be fine,
they tell you. You fall down
writhing on the cold floor
of your bathroom. That’s it,
they say. Dance it out. You roll
over on your back and stare 
at the peeling ceiling. That’s 
the way of this, they say. 
That’s the joy of the struggle.
You freeze there and can’t move.
That’s it, they say. You are
going to be fine. You hold on to that,
they say. No pain without gain,
they say, as you try not to cry.

— for Robert Bly

On the side
of a Maine mountain

while walking toward
a bare stone summit

a high wind storms up
out of nowhere.

I know how to walk
against this sort of nuisance

when I’m on level ground, 
but this feels 

different. Moss underfoot,
and if I slip I may fall — 

non-fatally, but far enough
to be in pain, to perhaps need

assistance or even rescue
afterward. But I’m so close

to the highest point I’ve ever
reached on my own — this

high wind out of nowhere,
it’s nothing. If I fall, I might fall

or I might fly, I might rise
even farther. If I call out

for aid upon falling?
Whatever being might answer

might choose me to let me fall,
or might elevate me — whoever

or whatever makes the choice,
I should be grateful 

that I was here
upon this mountain

for as long as it took 
to be chosen. 

to desire is to have
a hand full of 
smoke, 

wisps slipping 
between 
fingers as they

disspate. to desire
is to be ready
to close 

a hand upon
what may never be
seized although

that smoke seems
thick enough to
be held. to desire

is to understand 
nothing but 
a need to hold smoke

as it rises from
fire around your feet.
hold it like a staff.

hold it like a handle
for rake or shovel.
better to desire than

to hold what you desire.
to hold is to require
action once it’s in your hand.

to desire is 
to play with
smoke as if it were

more than 
ungraspable scent
and obscured vision, 

is to ignore
how fiercely 
you are burning.

Every animal in the house 
asleep except for me.

Maybe there’s a mouse at work 
somewhere in the walls,

but not to my ears.
It’s quiet enough that all I hear

is the warm air rising from the grates
and a plane headed for Boston,

or from Boston, forty miles
east of here. Soon there will be

the sound of the early train
passing the bottom of the hill;

traffic on the highway ramp
will pick up and after that

the apartments above me
will come alive and telegraph

busy mornings through
their floors to my ceilings.

We call this place a city
but unlike some others,

it definitely sleeps.
The animals here

take their need for
unconsciousness seriously,

as do I and I sit here acutely aware
of my own desire to fall away

and forget where I am 
for a few hours, yet here I am

watching the cats sleep
and thinking of my lover

asleep in the next room
while I pursue yesterday

all through the night
and into today,

hoping to catch it and shake it
until, somehow, it changes.

You stood by his bedside
the day you left, offering
blessings for the life
he would live without you.

He lay there and sobbed
and reached out for you to 
stay and talk and stay and love
and stay, just stay.

You walked off in a cloud 
of blessings as if you’d sprayed
the room for bugs or to leave
some floral camouflage.

Understand that your blessings
by themselves healed nothing of wounds
the boy did not even see
until he became an old man

and lay back in a different bed
understanding at last how the damage
inflicted back then was neither your fault
nor his own, but that regardless 

the scent of it lingered
in every bedroom he’d been in since.
The stinging in his scars
was the burned-in message

that everyone leaves, eventually;
it might as well be him leaving, even
if it’s not today, even if he is alone
at the time, even if the room

is stifling with blessings 
and protection and love.
Nothing is forever,
his wounds have said at every dawn

since you walked away, applying
a serum as protective
as any blessed potion, 
if not as sweet.

Things broken
from long fruitful effort,
too shattered to be repaired,
shout more loudly of triumph
than any fanfare ever could:

a desiccated tendril of
a wild grape vine clinging to
a wooden fence after
the vine has died and fallen away;

an egg case 
for some insect or
spider, empty
on the back porch;

a pair of once-strong boots,
soles worn through, peeking 
at sunrise from where
they were placed neatly
inside a trash can on trash day,
as if ready to be worn again at once.