The face of the new moon

is watching 

over the electric silence 

of a summer night. 

.

The gaps in the view 

out the window 

are merely echoes 

of rivers and butterflies.

.

All fades to silver 

and slows to cricket song

towards the end 

before the long wait til dawn.

A tsunami covers the town 

and nobody notices.

They shuffle from car to work 

and sometimes church. 

I think a thousand thinks by noon

and utter only seven. 

Why are there gulls in the clock tower?

–

Humming a song an octave below,

some amalgam of hums about 

dust, shells, home, rivers, and pockets.

Light bounces off my hair 

and I feel a moment of childhood again,

the sick part and the sweet. 

–

I’m so much better off when I carry a book.

Sidewalk versus nettles versus steps

and it’s all one path. 

You can mourn quietly and laugh loudly 

and it’s the same heartache

for chasing an ever-moving light. 

–

Time chimes through a town 

and old people cackle. 

We catalog things we find 

and it’s mostly numbers and colors. 

We slide from morning to night 

sometimes lingering over lunch

barely taking in the layers of art in a day.

The trick isn’t 

finding 

the right words,

.

it’s letting go 

all the ones 

that don’t matter

.

when everything 

seems equally 

dense. 

Midday shadows are stoic.

I am full but still nibbling. 

.

Opening the book of poems, 

excited yet a little afraid 

as every day shows me answers 

to questions I didn’t know I had. 

.

I’d simplify if I wasn’t so scared.

Always teetering on the edge of reason. 

.

There is a phrase… and then another,

speaking to my misery and my hope

both alight and reaching beyond 

rhyme or midday shadows. 

His battered trunk had a cracked hinge,

scuffed and faded from sitting in the sand 

music and fabric tumbled out

–

He shuffled a lot, looking down 

following his feet through memories

–

“The reason, for no particular reason 

to share theosophical flashbacks…” 

has to do with a bookstore gig in the ‘60s

–

“There be leprechauns here,” he said,

gruffly and apropos of nothing 

–

And yet,

the singing voice poured out like molasses,

sweet and a little slow

–

extolling virtues of enchanted snuggling 

and a lion’s roar that might be the ocean.