how many stars to accompany the moon

If you've ever wondered how many stars
It takes to accompany the moon
It is three

We've laughed
We've cried
We've hoped

It is you it is me it is we a complex of stem and leaf and vein

When greens are green
And everything is right When
We've overturned the rock to find the wheat
We've turned bad ground good
We've turned lost place found
We will  set broken heart right
And pieced together hope's sound

That does not stray or unwind as clock's time
That does not play with men as less than men
Or protrude into sea or underground
That does not wait to soothe
Or mix with joy
Should hardship come (it will come to all but not divined and not for all's time) we can know
It is safe to say
It is sure to say
We go around once as little planets in the shade
As if coming across open fields and fertile land for the first time
As if hearing music for the first time
Or smiling for the first time after hospital days

to go from dismal to surefooted in:across one prayer
To be turned round right when
Sleep has been away

Is right. It is right for the sick to be healed and for the lost to be returned home.

Between birth and death
Lays the longest hour
Life itself coming around the bend
To be made real
To ground pain's dull pain It Lays Behind

us. 2012

Only love can find us here
Through branch and vein
And twilight we've come to a peaceful place
My son
Only love can find us here

in my heart of hearts. 2012

in my hearts of hearts there is always you
Sitting up smiling sneezing and sneezing and then sighing one more achoo uh huhhh
Making your dad and I laugh
You've given us our highest highs
With you
Rocking you dancing with you
Singing Frere Jacques, twinkle twinkle, the lion sleeps tonight, halo, I hope you dance
You have a little hairdo today.  Just like daddy with hair sticking out on the side.
Cuddling with you and having you look up and see me. Wow.
Your big bright browny blue eyes
Blinking slowly
I want to keep you safe keep you so happy

"We seek purpose when we are not in touch with who we really are. When an apple tree discovers who it is, the question 'what must I do?' disappears. When you discover who you are (at the deepest place of your being) you will find your purpose." — Colleen-Joy Page

ashore. 2011

We have landed in the here
As if here always contains the whole world and we know all of the geography
Know when it will trip us up
Or loosen its grip on rocky walls
In fiction
The protagonist wins
After a quick struggle and delight
He drinks his afternoon coffee and
Squabbles with the same men over politics
Who is in who's out
They would do it differently of course
Add another cube of sugar
Tell their wives 


i



Here it is not like that

It is not just words
It is getting by another day
With my spirit
Not losing it
to this storm
Who is in the same struggle I am
but still

it's always the how. 2008

How
mechanical gears chopping piping down
into parts and tubes that will be used
for the city’s
water


How so
mechanical gears whirring
when we add mm to conversation
when asking about an old friend
who is going through a divorce and a move
mm hold your paddle steady close to the water
or in
the pipelines filling this city
do not follow the new roadways
with new joints the surface water is still 

Haikus. 2008

Haiku One


pyramidal work
dim street and chamber mid-day
cost of life -- the debt


Haiku Two


warm sweater. warm glove.
frost on cheek. loose snow packed. save
river for summer. 

Directional Adjectives. 2008

datum inserted into time
- -- - bird wing posted
to blue blue sky - -- -
orient compass for the sake of yesterday --
the psalms the things know where they grew
root and bark - invented shadow, -- they can only guess 

winter outline: barge from the past. 2011

old shipping levy
closed for the winter
children skate through the canal
onto the stony edge
everything - - at right - - - during play
every affection perpendicular at ice. time.
that sweeps over this country as a blanket on coals
cryogenically keeping our hearts slowed during the winter months
in our temporary addresses 

all the little birds. 2011

Groundwater runs strong in the spring after hibernation.

Unlike me. I slept for decades and coming alive

took the dawn and spare hours and tools

A noise of cellists running and playing e’s and g’s

Watching you I do feel the slow rising and falling of the empty belly of the day

Skinny day, belt lose on hips, lying back reclined from the light

It is here, in the little birds, in the twinkle of the rain 

It is here, that you stand and face it

Even if it turns you down

Loud concert roar cellists tuning turning their chairs to face the conductor with fortitude

the challenge and pace of the next piece

rara avis. 2011

I cross my fingers when I pray

To behold glory

                (As a shining glory that hosts all hours upon the steep steppes

                Whispering with the evening Chinook come back to me)

I feel I stumbled upon a theatre

Through the back door

Curtain is already up

Villain’s been slain

And I am an extra actor in this scene 

I am not pretending

I have no lines I am no lines

One vertical leap to the next level of hope

For my future, vertebrae to vertebrae

Reaching higher with expression in my face

Asking questions during intermission

Hoping I’m good enough to get through to press my face to the window and see through

There is no time to make the feeling of confidence more real

I have all that I ever will

In these shaky palms

I cross my fingers when I pray

Not because I am lying

But as balm for wounds of glory

luna. 2008

coat check at iota piscium

the shoulder’s are broad in a leader

hat tipped to 4 degrees

to give an air of palm trees in the winter.

do you know the captain have you met the man

he moves with ease through rapids of the politique the germinal

the excused.

crash landing by a young girl outside the valet

she speaks French cuisine French kissing rendezvous with dreams

that appear in the water                                                                                               film atop land

and leave in the high grasses behind the 305.                                                     shock atop accent.

2:45pm and Luna has landed on the Moon. our little collision son. one man’s face is the mirror of a thousand generations

and more, without remembering.

it’s the speaking about the physics that confounds the crowds

leaves them in their stilts feeling altered bewitched

without focus lens

at magnification of 3x. 20x. so diluted the gadgets build a wall of ignorance.

I borrowed a glass to have some champagne. and the clerks rushed to pour

three splashes of wit heroism without a focus

they were kind to me

and the thunder stormed and the hail failed to make a mark on the vipers the town cars

the sidewalks had no pools

TRADITIONS by heart – a sestina. 2008

In love, we know all of the words

Inflections pieced together, a poet’s well

Group – until I glimpse through ajar eye

In love, the overdue touch of hand

Tows tide to shore and wets the sand

Mortals speak through untimed bottled wine and verse.

In love, winepress of time bottles the verse

Anthology of shell on shelf, what words!

Dealing instead the forms of shifting sand

In love, to drink from prospective well – 

L’oiseau cautiously takes seed from hand

Realizing its caged perspective – lies the eye!

In love, this side of me rests in the nest or eye

Sprig shows construction – world’s strong verse!

First Light changes through canopy down to hand

In love, we know captivity is over through words

Net and furrow spread form a weathered well

First flight if you soar or land, return to sand

Capsized vessel displaces protected cargo to sand

But for one heart, or the pleasant me inside eye

Shipment of scripts to slow traffic – it is still well

Love is not the repeated verse

Quiet coppice – habits of freedom chart watery words

Captain or bird, the sea cannot undo link with love’s hand

In love, a store of grain leaves a store in hand

Anchor to withstand water over years, to sand

Could leave the lover without five pence for words

Orienting the heart depicts chamber as sufficient eye

Qualify feeling with stone and you return stolen verse

Beat beat – inside weather builds into bucket for well

In love, hold oar to language – one is hidden well

My hair my eyes my emphatic want for quiet hand

None of these verbs can arrest the bird during verse

In love, some prose is shared but none is without sand

New love makes us feel safe to look one in the eye

With one hand they ensnare the heart – with words:

two verses  -    -      -    -   -   catch rainwater in the well        

love the essential beam under words -  - give me your hand

remember the one who removed sand  -    - from your eye

on thomas’ grief thief of time. 2008

Beethoven you bore those things like pits and divorces
with string of wind
and breath of lovers
canons round and round
in the voice
carried with us, history makes first

cubism. 2008

Or low tide/ built the wall to keep out the bills/ to keep out the bill collectors
the biology

let’s talk about the whales
sunbathing getting caught
by tourists
cameras’
wares

blustery weather
two blues two lamps
I imagine you still wild on the land

ahead

ahead

right angle over oblong over obelisk stolen
over time to find the time
to
take the right steps and chase the point at which opposing lines
- --------- -- - meet.

On Atwood’s Provisions. 2008

So here we are then worn thin tired from life just from living we all have to do it

the tried soles sleeping we keep them walking

in the downpour

I have time waistband pocket watch

seeds cracked open for the birds we’ll meet

“I knew where I wanted to be even as a young kid. I just didn’t know that if I put one foot in front of the other, I would actually get there someday." –Katy Perry had a vision board, too

the heart is a movable gorge. 2010

the whistling  ----- ---      -      -- abbreviation

tuning form of Canadian relationships with apostrophe

we stretch like guitar string plucked at g

we host tin man, farmer, geologist, and harpist

the point of ice berg above the washing water

plot of land to seed and dig up

can we see the borders the fray the fence post secured

can

we ask the picture frame to

let in more light  -- to show the stray hair standing up

from crown

train of cars trills

on its first trip

west

to  a city where conversation is quick

miniscule salts for water

for un – composing the year’s births and weddings

the whistling  ----- ---      -      -- abbreviation

connected to this man and his wife through

thread looping back twelve years

a new gang of --       - prices   ------- for plot of land

and hay supply and hello

could you open the door the draft would be nice

Duke: "And what’s her history?” 2009

A blank, my lord. she quelled the

spirit - the want – to drink from that light-hearted

well of swearing and proving love.

                A blank, my lord. Viola, the sleeper

                the disguised run that does not betray

                momentous thought when he enters the scene –

And what’s her history? was it grief at a

lost mother , prickly tide of heavy heart

that greets the lover is it the morning

that reminds her of what is not?

                A blank, my lord. Could love be the ocean floor for the surface rains? he

made everything boundless with beauty

for her. She was not a blank. she was beyond the green, the heart, the light shimmer.

the eyes had changed to show prism of delight in the softest touch, the first

sound of a voice, the second of time at any point in the arching day.

night is as if there is only night. 2008

the shivers cost me an open eye.

I have told you about the barrens, but let’s talk about the lost.

canonized oration – a little by candlelight – a little by day –

white in the shock of the whole blue sky

curl of star dips down into the open air.

the wind in the evening

as I sit head back looking out the car window slips into the car

leaves an undertone of glass and road:

Night is as if there is only night.

ache tells us there is only ache

    recounting pebbles – moving in concert

    tumble – downhill – three – express

Night is as if there is only night

one voice not the other

nothing but loss

    darting heights need to rest

    the canyons freeze at night

if they do – warm – side by side, night and day a single world

colour wheel. 2007

colour wheel                                      sets me dries me                                             like red

 into the grand canyon

                                                                                                                love

is sometimes    light                                         for all the hours

for all the hours in the world I would leave this city to          find you

tempered tempo

we explorers look so similar from afar

and yet on ourselves we etch I am different I am so wholehearted I am so complete <span style="font-style:italic;">I am stealing your lines</span>

bass backbeat coming up from the apartment below

12:22 am on a week day night

it’s freezing outside it’s april outside

I feel like I’m learning too much too early or not late                       enough

timing was a                                       stumbling block.

[wind wings.] 2007

the whirring of sewing machines

water wheels

water lapping at the stones

forgotten there

under the beaches on the bench

by former students

readers

birds seeking the sun

going south

with the weather

         with the  remainder - see it -

of orange sunsets

crystal sidewalk?

shiny nights remembered

the whirring of clockwork - keep this pace -

fast paced words

settle in my throat

one degree outside

the last days of summer

Times: a New Roman. 2007

without you i would be

quick sand

waiting under the hot sun

to dry or

attack - an offense - in this part -

 species-specific

nostalgia is writ

along my hands - the border—

draft on page — light vaporizes - it used to be that we could get by on papyrus -

but i did not see this coming - and syntax is not on the page -

poetry over proof. 2007

yourself, you know

asking questions that you could not deliver

now they are your own

a city lies

    outside your door

and you’ve got something to show

for late nights

doubting yourself

thinking sometimes

that the melody is never going to catch

The Hour and the Dying Hour. 2006

the first hour and the dying hour

a wider strain                        around

the substance of

everything that begins to weather     lightning

                                      crack

                                      and end

These things have been named as one

The hour and the dying hour

one life

lived but not deeply

hidden without neighbours

around us spread lies like wildfire

The hour and the dying hour

necessary, both bottles

charitable: to time. 2007

I am still young

Reaching

as the grounded bird’s plumes cry out for dry air

blue feather tickling the webbed feet

green feather: clock counts time — units of seconds                  beating like

wings beating with flight

as something that is happening in her heart my heart

there are no right angles. 2010

The peace promoter stares blankly at the people

who had come for a revelation.

4 women 3 men had put their work on hold to find

inner peace.

Calvin Klein machine Dogma eyed crew find us.

 peace promoter stares vacantly at the public

who had come for revelation.

4 women 3 men skipped out on work to find

inner peace. To carve out a place

Calvin Klein machine Dogma crew find us

Please

Where we are least likely to be found

but yet are

faceless brute, wander me until tomorrow and forever

she goes out into a strange world every morning. 2010

she goes out into a strange world every morning.

and leaves the door unlatched with the hope that the elfish will come in

she pats the cat as he says good-bye

and feels shaken as                        the                         good birds   go

before her

she sinks into her sandals’ soles as the clock turns a quarter

and goes around the table                  twice

before clicking off the light

she cries out for people who know what they have seen

and can put into words the voices they hear urging the quit

to¯ot süēt′ 2008

granite points and shifts of some-rock

the objects of our affection might change

to replay the chord to box up the wine bottles I left at your sink

we scrambled to the top and broke out the camera

I can hear your good-bye slowly condensing flat third on the front window

                describing me. peeling paint instead of the bridge we climbed.

with a photograph we drew our weapons

four sharps but the melody still comes through.

I thought I would live in a thousand countries, with hundreds stored                                     still                                        as if the wars did not come to them

I played rogue you’re the playwright

slowly the birds of the spring the gulls the link

the ice fields loosen their hold to the ground

three inches each year will bring the whole shelf down

the north and the south; my love was not like that

hearts do not steer when you ask them to turn

melodies surprise the mind when they’ve been lost for years

and exposing the heart’s route can wash away the trail

all the waters. 2011

“all the waters”

they mirrored her

the tides the fog              all the waters

as she steeps tea at blackstone rent the roads out of eery rock and some boat

quilt of x squared lovers she collapsed into one vague recall             a roving twisting hillside village of one

roof

sight seen ambling to catch a scene on lens

ears curbed appetite that went long to fend

away

/things got so bad and

we stayed close

rent the roads 

borrow direction

north east or west 

doesn't matter doesn't care

town home a home

let's lay let's glimpse up at stars

when they do show

not every night

precursor to suffering. 2012

"About suffering they were never wrong." – WH Auden

precursor to a suffering i've never known but dreaded

it is the empty twist 

of heart

in the back of mind

you think something is coming

and it is 

but you don't know what or with who

or if you'll be left alone or surrounded with friends

let us worry about things weaker than flight

lighter than air I was suddenly alight

sending sparks to predecessors 


they 


with me


in suffering and it helped a little

bone index. 2008

a beach a glass of wine a sunset

two hands about to press

clasped in mind yet fleeing

they understand

their place is the same

they live in the same world

crux would rather

            if one is green the other is green

three rallies in the sky, the gods meeting to

ease the rain horizon

colour wheel retraces timid pulsing for love

poetre: here is the beginning, as seen and tasted

a year of change and no change.

2011.

ra·ra a·vis

   [rair-uh ey-vis; Lat. rah-rah ah-wis] 

–noun, plural ra·rae a·ves  [rair-ee ey-veez; Lat. rah-rahy ah-wes] 

a rare person or thing; rarity.

To see the Summer Sky;
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -- 
True Poems flee --

                                       - Emily Dickinson