To the night I offered a flower
and the dark sky accepted it
like earth, bedding
for light.

To the desert I offered an apple
and the dunes received it
like a mouth, speaking 
for wind.

To the installation I offered a tree
and the museum planted it
like a man, viewing 
his place.

To the ocean I offered a seed 
and its body dissolved it
like time, composing
a life.

History sits on a chair
in a room without windows.
Mornings it searches for a door,
afternoons it naps.
At the stroke of midnight,
it stretches its body and sighs.
It keeps time and loses time,
knows its place and doesn’t know its place.
Sometimes it considers the chair a step,
sometimes it believes the chair is not there.
To corners it never looks the same.
Under a full moon it holds its own.
History sits on a chair
in a room above our houses.

When the white trees are no longer in sight
they are telling us something,
like the body that undresses
when someone is around,
like the woman who wants
to read what her nude curves
are trying to say,
of what it was to be together,
lips on lips
but it’s over now, the town
we once loved in, the maps
we once drew, the echoes that
once passed through us
as if they needed something we had.

Now that legal tender has
              lost its tenderness,
and its very legality
          is so often in question,
it may be time to consider
the zero—
          long rows of them,
    empty, black circles in clumps
                          of three,
presided over by a numeral
                       or two.
Admired, even revered,
these zeros
          of imaginary money
capture
   the open gaze of innocents

like a vision of earthly paradise.

Now the zero has
a new name:
               The Economy.

As for that earthly
                paradise—well...

Wind:
Why do you play
that long beautiful adagio,
that archaic air,
to-night
Will it never end?
Or is it the beginning,
some prelude you seek?

Is it a tale you strum?
Yesterday, yesterday—
Have you no more for us?

Wind:
Play on.
There is nor hope
nor mutiny
in you.

It was
 
time that was
 
the tenderness—eden, as it is
 
       in need of
 
and tolerating no history—thus no tracks
 
of conventionalism in our shared patched boot
 
and oversoul pasts—just new snow, crossed through
 
like uncommon winter birds do—making paths invisible
 
but to few
 
—
 
But too few
 
continue—I've started to
 
think differently of nests
 
needs and webs. It's inevitable
 
I guess—& yet resplendent
 
isn't it? Always
 
a shocking testament
 
to what? Home? I don't know
 
how paradise found its parade
 
but I love it—patterns in steam
 
spinning off the Tivoli 
 
brewing tower yesterday—eye beams 
 
       into steel
 
                      greylit grey
 
    glisten      glistening

                We have a single sky.

                     have a single slash
 

gotta let the passageway silhouette,
benediction of my kneel creaks in ________ labyrinths;
trying to ________ pregnant, backgrounds with or without; married, single. pressing
hard, bloom drains from my hand. patch. sunlight dims
in the late aftertaste. sunshade dimming in the late age. 66°

Your pearl self slows power, circles

It is a small plant	
delicately branched and	
tapering conically	
to a point, each branch	
and the peak a wire for	        
green pods, blind lanterns	
starting upward from	
the stalk each way to	
a pair of prickly edged blue	
flowerets: it is her regard,	        
a little plant without leaves,	
a finished thing guarding	
its secret. Blue eyes—	
but there are twenty looks	
in one, alike as forty flowers	        
on twenty stems—Blue eyes	
a little closed upon a wish	
achieved and half lost again,	
stemming back, garlanded	
with green sacks of	        
satisfaction gone to seed,	
back to a straight stem—if	
one looks into you, trumpets—!	
No. It is the pale hollow of	
desire itself counting	        
over and over the moneys of	
a stale achievement. Three	
small lavender imploring tips	
below and above them two	
slender colored arrows	        
of disdain with anthers	
between them and	
at the edge of the goblet	
a white lip, to drink from—!	
And summer lifts her look	        
forty times over, forty times	
over—namelessly.

We travel carrying our words.
We arrive at the ocean.
With our words we are able to speak
of the sounds of thunderous waves.
We speak of how majestic it is,
of the ocean power that gifts us songs.
We sing of our respect
and call it our relative.

Translated into English from O’odham by the poet.

’U’a g T-ñi’okı˘

T-ñi’okı˘ ’att ’an o ’u’akc o hihi
Am ka:ck wui dada.
S-ap ‘am o ’a: mo has ma:s g kiod.
mat ’am ’ed.a betank ’i-gei.
’Am o ’a: mo he’es ’i-ge’ej,
mo hascu wud.  i:da gewkdagaj
mac ’ab amjed.  behě g ñe’i.
Hemhoa s-ap ‘am o ’a: mac si has elid, mo d.  ’i:mig.