In spite of wind over the meadow There is a kind of silence hidden In this repose of your body.

One side of me is hot and the other Cold, stone cold. Silence of warmth, smile of silence, which slowly becomes

Music, the one the side of heat, is you. Dropping behind the mute towers, on the side of cold, is the sun.

Soon evening will come on Fireflies' wing. Dark will seep Into the hours that you hold

(You will, won't you?) out for me In the lines of your palms. There we will fall into song.

Sing silence, you sing. Sing golden stalks of wheat, your hair sings Sing stars of my night, your eyes sing. Sing young dogwoods, your waist sings. Sing sharp skyscrapers of the city, your bones sing. Sing the echoing spaces in between, I too sing.

At 2004 Dogwood Festival

As a man grows into the years digging into the moist earth a tunnel of years

His talk on any occasion Returns to the past The threads of experience coiled inside him, root like, hold voice, sights, joys and griefs.

But I desire more than the growth of roots. I desire the upward thrust of the trunk, the spread of branches, the growth of fruit, the fall of leaves.

I desire one continuous unfurling into the changing and constant light.

When you find yourself Lying next to, above or below A body begging for love that is not love but desire.

(What is the difference between The two? Giving and Receiving. Rain and earth.)

Let there be no guilt. Desire is purer than love ever can be. One is an idea, the other is heat, Skin, saliva and bone.

Don’t drag in ideas for what life Should stand for. There will be hours between any two Fulfillments, any two feasts For such confusions to cast their shadows

Over the cities of the soul. But at the late hour when in the dark Desire takes form as a thirst, a thrust

And the bed is a lake to sink deeper Deeper with another body tied to yours A block of concrete, a heavy stone

Be with that person. Don’t think of the others – I, for example. There is a way into the beyond, perhaps, through him Or her.

The rest will follow as well, Pain, blooming flowers. Love, falling leaves. Me and my tears.