The Poem You Aren’t

There’s what you sense,
What’s in your head,
And all the rest
You know you can’t.

There’s wind, fast clouds,
Cut grass, brick dirt,
Chimes, road noise, birds,
Tired limbs, faint thirst.

There’s what you did,
Was done to you,
What you hope’s false,
What you’re sure’s true.

There’s what you aren’t,
That vast, blank poem
No part of thoughts,
Your one true home.

What Frames Are

While you’re on your next jag
On the end of the world,
Here’s a framed thought on light—

Next time you get full sun,
If you can, in your neck
Of our spun rock, check out

The light that floods a room,
And the same light, same source,
Through those skies out of doors.

Does the light in the room
Seem a bit more, a bit
Of gold poured through a frame,

But light on the far side,
Once you’re out there, seem plain?
Just like that, the world ends.

The Three Alls

A tree is one;

It is all tree,

And none of it

Is sky or horse.

Once, in a war,

One side took death

To its far ends,

Pure as could be.

Death would be one,

Would be all death,

And the war won.

And war’s what won.

There are no alls—

Not deaths, not trees,

Not one. To be

Is to part be.