All is burnt. We rebuild.

I cannot make the way smooth for you Young lovers chiseling out your own path on this earth I’ve been squinting through this old keyhole With my blindest eye, been singing my wobbliest notes I feel windows open for dancing I smell the fresh bread of tomorrow punching higher All across the land toes are digging Into dirt, pebbles, grass, wood - every foot a new shape First son, new daughter, you make me glad There will be breath, there will be food, there will be cartwheels

how can you call this a quiet night when inside the skull there is a ceaseless ricochet? empty your mind, you prophets tell me but do you not know how many would then be homeless? all my bodies are in here with me all my mothers, all the mosquito-bitten evenings we are eating mangoes and guavas we are leaving home, again and again and again we hear the echoes of slamming doors and the quiet shush of pages turning, returning counting out the years, bites, loves, the beats all my children, my selves, the loud repeating futures this is an endless house of my life do not make me tear it down, where would I live and rest?

We are afraid, and we burn with joy We sit in the dark, fingers flying over the keys We etch a lightness out of the weight The redbuds mock us gorgeously. The deer amble past Humans hungry for a human touch Days fall into heaps, weeks are too old to count clearly Ask the questions! It’s now or never What keeps you alive? What threads the hours from sleep to sleep? How does it feel to be suspended? Holding the world’s breath, how do you really feel today?

There comes a time when the well rings dry When the mothers and fathers live in empty houses When the day turns an unseen color When the letters we send shred themselves to confetti There comes a day when the trees grow tired A time when my bones walk slower than my memory When the signs don’t know how to read me When the comfort I get comes from counting surely down There comes an hour when we just stop short When the world streams by in all its hot cacophony There comes a moment when all is well The pebbles are smooth, the babies are rolling fatly When the roar of the unthought, undone Lets through ribbons of song from the basements and attics

the silence means something new each day my hand on the big paper going round and around my face at the window looking out we wait at different corners for the same autobus sanity can be found like spring snow cold, unexpected, strangely beautiful, till it hurts sanity can be counted, counted in every head, in every body, beating the time there is so much noise until it stops there is so much life in the counting out of the pulse minutes to midnight, hours to dawn days till release, decades until we have learned it all counting the scars, telling the blessings shouting them aloud in all God’s languages at once

I walk up to you, I walk away You remain a tangle, a menace, a mystery One day I put out a hand to you One day I look you over, begin to measure you Your snarl quiets. I hear a small purr. My fear is only fear. I feel your heart’s rhythm beat I read your heads, skim through your pages I jump into the middle of your exclamations Together we make sweet sentences Smooth your rough phrases, flaunt the bold truth you were holding I divide your dozens of thousands Into chapters and days. You give me a page. One more Soon we are a regular couple Hourly we wrestle, dance, word by word. Not afraid now All at once we don’t need each other We’ve each given all that we could. I send you away I think I might still linger in you My fingerprints lightly dusting the space where you breathe And you will always remain with me Your quirky turns, your strange trivia, your bright brave heart

My eyes fly open at all the hours Light or dark, ache or worry, clanging or deep still calm Three a.m. I am torn all which-way Not meant to be here. Not sure how to quiet my heart Should I read, write, make required amends? Should I tackle to-dos or gentle my body down? I feel my face abstract and sideways A mind wriggles free of the fences built to tame it At the graying hour, finally, rest Where heavy and light meet weightless and timeless, I sleep