Untitled

There, by the bank of the Chattahoochee,
drinks a squirrel: clothed in the softest of grays and browns.
He is drinking as if he had learned
--without counsel--that he is in need of
thirst to yearn for water.
His love for the drink has brought him back
without map or guide.
He is there; drinking,
seducing the water with the flicker of his tongue.

The water willingly gives way to his lashes
and he, taking only the pleasures needed,
reflects his image upon the sky.
It is the squirrel in the water
he loves dearly, and he licks it clean.
He, the squirrel, and it, the water
do not know that they are called so.

Searching for the Un-Lost

I have found myself searching for
things I thought I had lost;
keys that sit by the entry,
papers that sit in the tray,
letter arriving in the mail (one day soon).

Hopefully.

Around my world
of dog filled garages, cars, and grades
these things had not been lost for some time,
but I had been searching
and had not found that they were as always.

Always.

They sit patiently (multiplying) as I type letters
incoherently;
chat with friends in faraway lands
(or myself and sometimes, God);
sip tea hotly steaming with milk and vanilla

Into something more beautiful than satisfaction;
think about the china I inherited and have yet to use
more than once (maybe Thanksgiving tea).
They are still there
waiting for me to see them

and stop

searching, and be satisfied.

In Holding

I believe I have felt
no emotion worth remembering
and no satisfaction in forgetting.
For all of my feelings have been
left in holding
replaying the death of a man.

As I have moved within and about
they have laid covered in his bed
waiting for his eyes to open and his lips to speak;
they have refused to believe that his chest,
which moves so slightly in rhythm--as to suggest breathing--,
is hollow.

As I combed the flooded streets
of the eastern banks of San Louis,
they have wondered if he remembers
that he was once a man (elegant, charismatic),
and can hear the doe above cleaning the meadow.


They have wondered if he was gone
before the tube feedings and all night tremors.
Did he see them watching his transition
from life to something else
and watering his growth.
He has never said,
and they have waited.


As they and he lay,
Covered by the seasons
The stripes and the stars
I believe that I shall not feel
And they shall not rest until
He answers, but he cannot
And we wait in holding.