hiatus

Oh, this velvet reprieve of Sleep,
my true friend, my simple, necessary grace -
if I promise to pay attention, to keep
my eyes open once I wake, will you give me your embrace?
If I tell you I will walk my path alert, upright,
and watch the road for signs of danger nearing,
will you bless my drowsy lashes closed tonight?
Will you give me just a moment's silent clearing?
The stars are out, my love, in luminescent beam.
So come. Let's fall away. Let's disappear. Let's dream.


I'm off on my own personal hiatus...a week in the Nevada desert to join the throngs at Burning Man. No phone, no email, no blogs. I think the airwave silence will do me good. I challenge you to break one habit this week. Which routine behavior / activity / distraction / obsession, are you willing to do without?

everything new again a poem to my nephew on the occasion of his birth

you have no idea what an airplane is
or what blue looks like
or how to tie shoes or unlock doors or break someone's heart.
you've entered as innocent as water, forgiving as the moon,
and looking at you I, too, can unremember the stars,
the view from Macchu Picchu, the shape of ferns
and triangles, the sticky taste of peanut butter, the smell
of a single lily in a glass vase.

Look how easily you've made
everything new again, and how deep
in the palm of your hand you hold the
tiniest bloom of a secret no one can know:
what will call to you to be touched,
to be held and kept close.

how we began

soft clutch against an earthtone wall
a small hello, barely visible to the naked eye
except we both saw it, that subsurface want,
the inches it would take for collision
to mess things up so beautifully,
a walled-off construction site
with its stern instruction for hardhats
we happily disobeyed,
that's how we began.

and that's how we shuffled forward,
feeling the knots of ourselves coming undone
with each footfall, each nightfall, each time
the moon rose up in all her elegance
and bestowed her luminescent gifts
on our limbs, the bay outside
reflecting this easy acquiescence,
nodding us to sleep.

it would not be enough to say i love you.
it would not be enough
to exchange simple syllables for the grand expanse
of my heart, its tender-tempo'ed thumping.
it would not be enough to tell anyone precisely
how my eyes go soft-focus when you give
yourself to me, surrendering your neck to my shoulder,
your cheek to my lips, the small of your back
to my waiting palm.