Eulogy

I only know the time of year it happened
I forget everything else
The exact dates are gone
I let them sink into forgetting
I wash them clean with water
From a headstone without looking
It's all a fading thought now
There may be something
An archive, a folder
High on a library shelf
I don't even know where we were
And we went quietly with them
Down the narrow steps
Beneath dark folds of ground
Shivering with God
And the stars weren't stars
As we pulled down the doors
Amen

Hourglass

The first person to die
Wasn't a person at all
Swimming through the salt warm ocean
Heat pushing up in a red stream
And the fish died
But he had brothers
And sisters who found others
In cold deep waters
Kept the whole thing going until
Someone learned to breathe clear air
Crawled across the sand to the green trees
What a scene
And now it's over evolved fish
With legs and lungs and business meetings
Ties and colored contacts
So which is it
Come
Let's dip our hands in the water
Turn the hourglass and swim away

The Fading

My hand is warm and fading
What it writes is the sun
The light against the blinds
It writes from one view
It falls still on paper
Counting out the hours
And Autumns yellow sleep
Is turning white
I grow old again each morning
From the quiet room
In the space between words
In the drawn out note
Of the changing light

Rain and White Waves

Watch the sky with drowning eyes
Float down heavy with the ocean

Above there will be rain and white waves
And the overturned shouts of night

Sleep and don't notice
Let the blue earth turn its crysalis about you

Something quiet and full of light
Is brushing through the sand

The moon underwater