Write on the Fire

The ones of us, those of us,
These of us—you, me of us

Who are not on fire, not yet,
Who can still breathe and buy food,

And sleep in clean sheets, big beds,
Real beds with no guns in them,

By real glass in sills and frames,
Which have whole panes, keep out rain

And the starved eyes that might stare
Through the glass but have not yet

Smashed through, who will smash through it
One night to swap sleep for dreams—

We can talk and write and send
Lines of text, small words like these

That don’t seem to see a thing.
Oh, we see. We see and hedge

Our bets on the hunch that death
Will come get us from our bones

And not give its kin the chance
To haul us out of our homes.

These lines know the fires will burn.
Each word aims to get out, first.

A Maze

It’s not just when we’re caught up
In a wish no good for us,

In some choice that’s bad for us,
That the mind whines out of sync

With some rough joy in our guts.
Days with no good news in them,

Days that do not squirm for us,
Twist their spines to bend our way,

May prod the wise mind to froth
At the foam-flecked mouth of sense

And still, in their own weird dance,
Feel right, feel good, be at peace.

If This Holds Up

The day that was good, that was
Not for what one swift change

Wrought, but good for what it brought
For hours and hours, a plain good

Of calm and food and clear light,
The soft, bare good of small words

That came and stayed in the thoughts,
That grasped calm, and held and held.

What Brings You Here?

Home is the mouth of a bear.
No one leaves home who is not
Large enough to bleed out there.

The things that are small find joy
In the bits of fruit and flesh
Left to cling to the bear’s teeth.

The things that were large are gone,
Down the throat, or dead, or fled
With their wounds back to the woods.

I would like to be a beast
So small I could live at home
My whole life, but I dream woods.

Bright Clouds

The air moves. The most still air
Moves all the time, moves it all

From there to here—there is no
Shift that does not come for us,

The air moved to make more room
For us, for this, for more time,

More air come from there to here.
Here we are. And here we are,

And here is the air, and there
Are the bright clouds, or the clouds

We can’t see yet, spun by light,
Blooms of the air on their way.

They will get here. Here they are,
And now, you see, the air’s moved.

You wished it would. Or you wished
It would not. It did. It’s air.