The coffee was cold so I said so. I said,
my coffee is cold, and then I repeated it
but with a variation, something like, my
coffee is cold and I said so, and then, I
said I am glad my coffee is cold because
I get to say so, and I said my coffee is cold
like the Sahara at night, and I said the Sahara
is a lot like my coffee, which has cream,
and it is cold which means I have to say so
or someone will say to drink my coffee,
which is cold and the camels are asleep.

Let’s try it again, I said, taking a sip of coffee,
and then not taking a sip but still holding
the cup and I said look at the cup and see
if you can see the Sahara and then I said,
it was in there a moment ago but I took a sip
and it is inside me I suppose, and I said then
the same thing, my coffee is cold, and also,
this coffee is cold to make sure they knew
which coffee, not coffee as coffee but coffee
as a part of the whole and also immediate
in some sense, like waking in the desert.

I write a lot about coffee, I said, and I said,
I just need to see who my friends are, the ones
who will stay till the end, and I added, I do not
take death as a personal insult, and I said it was
good to repeat things but not ideas, and I said
it was not good to repeat ideas, and I said also
it was good to repeat things, and I said my coffee
is cold and I can say so and I said when I say
my coffee is cold it is part of something bigger
that can last as long as I say it is, still is, and then
I said my coffee is still cold at this time, still is.

Time says “Let there be”
every moment and instantly
there is space and the radiance
of each bright galaxy.

And eyes beholding radiance.
And the gnats’ flickering dance.
And the seas’ expanse.
And death, and chance.

Time makes room
for going and coming home
and in time’s womb
begins all ending.

Time is being and being
time, it is all one thing,
the shining, the seeing,
the dark abounding.

Days come and go:
this bird by minute, hour by leaf,
a calendar of loss.

I shift through woods, sifting
the air for August cadences
and walk beyond the boundaries I’ve kept

for months, past loose stone walls,
the fences breaking into sticks,
the poems always spilling into prose.

A low sweet meadow full of stars
beyond the margin
fills with big-boned, steaming mares.

The skies above are bruised like fruit,
their juices running,
black-veined marble of regret.

The road gusts sideways:
sassafras and rue.
A warbler warbles.

Did I wake the night through?
Walk through sleeping?
Shuffle for another way to mourn?

Dawn pinks up.
In sparking grass I find beginnings.
I was cradled here.
I gabbled and I spun.
And gradually the many men inside me
found their names,

acquired definition, points of view.
There was much to say,
not all of it untrue.

As the faithful seasons fell away,
I followed till my thoughts
inhabited a tree of thorns

that grew in muck of my own making.
Yet I was lifted and laid bare.
I hung there weakly: crossed, crossed-out.

At first I didn’t know
a voice inside me speaking low.
I stumbled in my way.

But now these hours that can’t be counted
find me fresh, this ordinary time
like kingdom come.

In clarity of dawn,
I fill my lungs, a summer-full of breaths.
The great field holds the wind, and sways.