I didn't want to return here, you know...



I would have balled my fist,
hardened my eyes
if not for the pensive way
you gathered, studied my hand
as if it were a folded wing
of a bird.


& I might have turned
torn you here, cornered you
starting with your eyes
slashed with talon, dug with beak
if not  for your wood smoke
smudge of baritone deep


twinkling
your runnel of song,
your old truck calm
patient wheeling up round
one switchback, two...always,
unhurried purpose, determined smiling joy
wiggled back in seats that jigged in time...
& if you knew the hurt
clamped tight in my heart,  you never let on.
as I sulked my silence to the galax
& chestnut clouds...ears popping
expanded by your laughter


when a bird answered
in the same splintered sap bled pine
calling back like that other time
when I was queen & sang on rocks...
(you could not have known this)

& It's better now, my high towered love,
that you should sing the song


here, in this place.


when raptors black & red
voyeur calm their patient M's
up round one switchback, two...
stop mid wing & turn so sure
the wake of their feathered whir
we taste on our faces
'midst love made
bay scented riotous
on moss & boulder
& blazed gilt of skin.


caught between a nameless shout
a bottomless sob
but for our hope, we climb
exultant reeling pleasure~
spy dizzy & pass expansive
down the cliff
(though I did not want to look there)
a valley rarely as clear
as the hazeless coming night
mountains now a distant back turned
softly in the western sky.


Gather me now, bind up my chill
wrap me back
in from this edge
Let me turn to you here,
In this place
& hide it safely away.