To sing like birds
in passionate anonymity
all swoop and soar
in morning's stunned beginnings

to sing in the shell of time
and wait for echoes from the deep
the smell of salt and gulls calling
the always mystery of fogs

to sing our numbered hours
and spin the inner moons of earth
with rarity of simple things like snow
and windows frosted white

to sing an octave above the past
against a loud silence, the extravagance of loss
when all was garden, grace and eden
where nothing when it happened was enough

to sing faithful to the flesh
the heart's percussion
the naked sprawl of days
and celebrate that we have come this far

2

When I was a  nightingale, I sang
When I was a serpent, I swallowed
my voice, spume blown from a wave
a sound too thin for earthworms

In my body of skin, of moss, of clover
I touch fingers with fingers
              lips with lips
              the exposed tip of the heart

With memories older than Prometheus
I remember the time when time was birthed
the sky appeared
sudden light   
the wind and water
where blind valves closed
on a single grain of sand.

Seed work   sun work   earth work
If pansies are for thoughts
pick them early in the morning
so they last

With a pocketful of seeds, I sit
peeling an orange under a static sun 
attentive to the sound of pine cones clicking open
and gravity's a long way down

..There is my past which is really past...
            -from There Is by Guillaume Apollinaire

There are my feet in cotton socks on your toes.
There is a Patti Page waltz, my wing bone arms at your waist.
There I am with you, bathed in light. I hold on tight.
      We are dancing.
There is long ago and long to come.
There is a flutter of leaves on a speechless breeze.
There is a wind moving in, in an echo of motion and chatter.
There are clouds in the sky I search for your face.
There are strangers a blur in the crowd, a hum heavy with voices.

There is who you have become, your face a face in the crowd,
       one of many faces
on a vendor selling lace from a stall at Les Puces de Paris Saint Ouen,
on the lips of a Tunisian eating chorizo in baguettes at Gare St-Lazare,
on the ferry captain's arms at Pont de Neuf carrying me down the Seine,
on the soldier riding the train watching sunflowers grapple the fields,
on the old man's hands rolling balls across Coquille Square
on a gypsy boy I tossed coins for a look at your amber eyes on his face
on that Morrocan, Bastille Day, just off Rue St-Antoine. In the street,
      we were dancing.

There are words pressed into my fingertips brushing your cheek.
There is me missing all that you might have become. You are large.
There is you looming above me wrapped by your muscled arms,
      and dancing.
There is your heart beating hard inside my chest wall.
There is time passing through me like a conduit.
There is long ago. There is long to come.
There is this past that is really past.
There is me, without you.