DOWN BUT NOT OUT

With the thinness 

and pallid consistency 

of dead trees 

by midwinter, the sparrows 

have grown 

hard to see. Still, 

we know they are here 

by the sharp way 

they cry 

at the bleary un-

folding 

of indigent dawn—

as if solely responsible, 

as it limps 

through the sky, 

for bearing the war-

wounded weight 

of the outcast 

but stubbornly 

oncoming veteran 

sun. 

UNFINISHED

We are all born 

as hatchlings: blind, 

featherless, pink—

and yes, equipped 

with the twin 

wings of hopefulness 

and grief. Only,

we don't know how

to harness them them yet. 

For now, we are young, 

and the dead of course

are other ages.

At the windows, 

by their ledges, 

on some precipice 

we wait, tasting

the upraising breeze 

on our faces;

but the sky is 

much colder than we 

can conceive,

and the sun, so much 

farther away

than we think. 

EMPTINESS

Hymn 

that the dead sing; 

sheer absence's salve; 

true-to-life 

enough as 

memory itself; 

that which you find 

an abundance of 

everywhere—and 

which you 

must bear, but 

cannot have. 

JANSPLAINING

As the light now 

always seems to be 

leaving, never coming—

so do I, 

from the weak 

morning's first, 

always have 

the sense of running 

some minutes behind;

of resolving 

by declining embers 

just to stand aside;

of struggling 

mightily 

just to conclude—

to contain,

to confine—never mind 

begin something. 

SIGIL

As it trickles 

out the dented 

downspout, 

the same water

which might, 

the night 

before, have split 

the rock 

which blocked 

the floodplain path 

or surfed atop 

the roiling ocean—

conspires now 

to form 

a pictograph message

on the salt-

packed void of shallow 

asphalt below: 

your success 

is inevitable 

only once it's passed, 

it says;

as your ancestors 

dreamt of a house 

beyond death, 

you must not forget 

to laugh. 

 

SOLACE

In the friendless

foe-less cold 

of January, 

the sun 

does its best setting 

far away. 

From somewhere 

inside us, our own 

spare thoughts 

fly out like dry 

corvid cries 

to meet it—

but of course, it is 

too far, too cold, 

too late. 

After all the things 

its silent touch

has invited—

after all the gaze 

of its eye 

has allowed—

it does not console

or conceal 

or reproach now; 

it doesn't 

have a thing 

to say. 

TESTAMENT

As sure as the mighty 

wind itself 

must be not 

but envious 

of the littlest newborn's

shallowest breath, 

so too, the God

of that child's understanding 

would have to be 

a jealous one—

forever in competition 

(as He 

must have known 

He would be)

with the sky of pale 

papier-mâché He

deigns to display 

each winter morning, 

if not for 

her allegiance, then 

at least for her 

attention.