mostly poetry, some prose

When I was old I became close to my death. He slept next to me snoring like a freight train, his bony elbows digging into my ribs; once he left a filament of saliva on my wrist. We ate together, equally voracious: he snatched a strand of clam linguine from my open mouth. Evenings we walked side by side in Flatbush lost in our symptoms, reciting them like prayers, my kneecap my shoulder the small of my back, each determined to be the one who suffers. Still we were not immune to a crocus pushing up through a sidewalk crack—in fact that beauty seared us like flame; a child’s voice thrilled us singing the alphabet forwards and backwards. We both felt like exiles among those tenements, both of us had stopped calling friends, we wrote only the briefest of notes to our remaining families— we’d each entered silence. Still, when he was gone to the bathroom or to the lobby to pick up mail I felt a surge of panic: Am I immortal? Will I have to live forever, alone in this vast city?

it is the hard edge of things i am avoiding the separations so that i can take my glasses off and then i cannot tell which are the leaves and which the angels like blake like that man who lived with the lepers not noticing what was sin and what was grace visioning visions vision i take my glasses off so i can see

When you fast, drink the sound of water. The sound does its work—

the sound of water lapping the shore, the sound of water gurgling among rocks.

Deep listening does its work. A babbling brook for thirsty seekers, it gives you life.

Touched by the water of life, a bald head sprouts locks of perfumed hair. Mixed with this water, wine clears the drunkard's head. Be patient, you'll see.

You've emerged from me, says the water, you'll return.

Like a shepherd tending a flock, the angel of sleep urges souls through placeless meadows, gardens, cities.

Sleep wipes the slate clean. Thousands of new faces and forms appear. The wide-eyed soul watches in awe,

and perhaps it always dwells there, where no memory persists, where the bodiless body never tires.

The heart that trembles here under the weight of possessions— under the weight of their absence—

soars weightless there.

and then again the falcon dives down, seizes my heart, urges me on.

Smoke rose from my heart. My grain and hay burned to ash.

I'm not grieving. Why should I grieve? The halo around the moon is enough for me and I can't eat sorrow.

Sit down with me. You're a smart one. Consider what I was and what I no longer am.

I wanted to be a kingpin, top dog, bigger than big.

Like smoke, I climbed greedily, going nowhere— a crooked plume, wayward, drifting over parched land, thirsty for meaning.

I didn't know when Love hunts you down, when you fall prey to Love, you only rise higher.

Continuing my futile climb, I fell. I fell, like a gem, out of a pile of dirt— not a hoarder of treasure.

Treasure.

Hidden exchanges, hidden cycles stir life underground. What stirs the life in you? The garden asks.

The garden thrives. Invites us to do the same.

Saplings break through darkness— ladders set against the sky. Mysteries ascend.

Lips of lilies open— secrets whispered to the cypress. Good news of spring blasts from the mouths of tulips, among redbuds and willows, nightingales perched like guards over open coffers of nectar.

Leaves are tongues. The fruit, a heart. When the heart opens, we know the tongue's worth.

Who is it? asked my heart. The moon, said my soul.

Madmen that we were, we left to scour the streets in search of its bright face.

I'm right here, the moon said. Inside!

We wandered farther and farther. Deaf to its calls, calling out in vain.

A drunk nightingale sings in our garden. A drunk nightingale laments in our garden. Who? Who? we call out like mourning doves, hearing only our own one-note song.

At midnight, a crowd hunts for a thief and a thief in the crowd shouts, Yes, there's a thief among us! It's him. It's her. It's me.

His voice, a lost thread in a tangle of voices.

When you're searching for something, search for the thief within— master of distraction,

he pockets the moon and the nightingale.

Search for the Beloved, closer to you than you.

Melt like snow. Silent as a lily, the soul's tongue springs from Love's soil.