This pine log wasn’t here Last winter, when I came Here last, one Sunday afternoon, To alternatively harangue God (Whose existence I doubt) and to Lose the constant clamor inside By sinking into the musical Silence of this wooded hollow.

This I hear all around me again – The gurgle of water as it falls down A slope of boulders, the drill of A pileated woodpecker, the rumble Of a train rushing towards somewhere (Like a long exhalation of winter earth) On tracks that lie on ground above this one.

Here at peace, I alternatively write down A word or two or scan verse From the slender volume of Blake that I carry around constantly these days In my shirt pocket, as a talisman against These days of many year-ed silence as A gangly recruit might carry with him A packet of Lucky Strikes or a stack Of sepia photographs of a gawky girl Striking awkward poses, down below Into the trenches filled with mustard gas.

What else shall I write about? The log shivers as I shimmy up Along it to the tumble of mossy Rocks and place my hand under The falling water. Lord! It is cold. Cold which passes right down To my toe-bones. Such is also The awareness of dreams where I encounter a younger myself After a season of rains, running A piece of magnet, which came from A busted stereo speaker, through The runoff sand and silt, trolling For black glinting iron filings, stray Nails, bolts, and pieces of broken cans.

How was I to know that Many years hence, this is What I would have to do Again and again after nights Of inconsolable grief - pass My tongue through a language That is at once foreign and My own?

I must also confess that often I am my own friendly confessor Holding a switch of thorns in One hand and the cross of time In the other. And blood that Spurts across the face of a sky, Devoid of both innocence and guilt, Is my will, is my testament.

And to this hollow of beached Tree bones, I will have to return Often to listen to this commandment Written by water on stone, on wood:

“Let love, or some approximation of it, Groove your heart…”