Afterimage

October
near the limit of trees
on the reflective
polished granite
skinned of soil
walking
blinking
by the resting meadow
a shooting violet
green stemmed twin
living delicately

Tying dreams
while choosing stones
for a garden
making a place to live
distracted
lying

the image
of a desire
vaporized
by the heat of summer
enveloped now
by the disintegrating
campfire

I hunt phosphenes
the sun downing quickly
like the wild azaleas re-closing
chilled
to the dusk
the fingers
of the palmate sun
trailing down my closed eyelid
going delicately
past the wilderness



--Avocet, 2000

By the Reeded Shore

of mosquitoes and sun
bitten
burned
he walks
watching
coming quietly by
her voice and her listening
awash in his eyes
breathing the fringes
of her garden

brown in her shadows
and in her roots
the wooded sylphs flick her hair
and its combs tease the air
around his ears

he climbs the hummocks
of Cassiope bells
and kneels at her knees
clutching the thin bristles
brushes
cones
bedding

he is the pine flower
in her small but roomy corner
among the drifting pollens
and her vague lure
he holds his feelings
with myths in his hands
and gives her broken strands
alive and crooked
to lay into her leaves



Avocet, 1999

Granite Water

following the tributary
plunging into the alders
and willow
slabs of bark
shattered logs
printing
the mica sand
and last years leaves—
the floating bracts
of dogwood over
stepping down
the igneous crystalline
jointed boulders
and azalea banks
to the maple elevation
and last cascade

We reached the Stanislaus
the May water
of suspended minerals
and lifeless velocity
sometimes flying
pushing out anything loose
including any thought
of dipping in

We only watched the fear
as it shot by unchallenged
from one churn
to the next
like a falcon in pursuit
of June
.
.
.
Avocet, 1999