Monday, October 20, 2025

THE MASS ORDINARY

Everybody sees 
these crimson-
tipped maple leaves—

some plastered 
to the dewy 
grasses near their feet, 

many still clinging 
to senescent 
mother trees 

like fabulous flags 
to decrepit 
poles of memory.

In their own 
low-key way,
everybody senses 

the individuality, 
the novelty 
of each—

and yet, 
nobody thinks 
to make a distinction 

between which leaf 
is which. Isn't 
that interesting? 

Friday, October 17, 2025

SURRENDER

Star-scoured, 
moon-rinsed, 

the air at the window 
is now bell-clear,

and even thought itself 
becomes cheap 

in a world where distant 
branches dangle 

fresh necklaces of condensation 
in scant white rinds of light. 

There is no way 
to get inside 

the alien absurdity of it,
but no way out 

of the moment, either;
no point of reference, 

no view from outside 
of quiet's totality—

and so, for one more 
night at least, 

we slow our breath, let go 
of what we call belief,

and willingly fall 
into labyrinths of sleep.


Thursday, October 16, 2025

KENOSIS

I do not write 
to collect 
my thoughts; 

I write to disassemble,
and then spirit 
them away.

As light 
through a glass lake 
will separate and remain 

only as a little heat 
and motion 
in the waves, 

each day, I divide 
and further 
sublimate my mind 

in the hopes that, 
in the end, I'll have 
materialized my soul—

emptied 
my whole self 
out into the world.

No map to unfurl 
of some buried 
cache of interior life;

if no such inner 
life remains—there's 
nothing left to find.


Wednesday, October 15, 2025

HOW TO MAKE RELIGION

Mix until 
just combined 
(stir, don't shake) 

equal parts lucky 
to be alive 
and dismayed 

by just how profoundly 
it agitates 
that gratitude 

to have no one 
and nothing specific 
to thank. 


Tuesday, October 14, 2025

KNOWN UNKNOWNS

Acrobatic finches 
pull and tease 
the hackberry branches,

heedless as birthday 
toddlers ripping 
clean through tissue paper—

discrediting so-called 
eyewitness accounts 

of consciousness 
existing 
at the center, 

and not just 
as a dashed-off 
insouciant flourish 

ringed around 
everything's fringes.

*

Where there's a will, 
there's a way—but 

is the converse 
also true? 

Does a "thing to do"
preordain a doer? 

Could the heart persist  
outside of its armor?

For that matter, 
could "outside"
exist—even a little—

if it didn't surround 
that wound 
called "the middle?"

Monday, October 13, 2025

REPEATING OURSELVES

Like those roses which sustain 
their blanching blooms 
clear through October, 

we too 
may now look 
a bit worse for the wear 

as we hold
the last sonorous 
note we'd prepared 

in defiance of the muffling pall 
of a silently 
darkening autumn—

as if virtue consisted 
in our obliviousness 
to criticism 

and praise and thanksgiving 
in our freedom
to do the one thing 

we already know 
how to do 
without thinking. 


Friday, October 10, 2025

WHAT IS THIS?

If matter is 
slow energy 

and energy 
is fast matter, 
then what 

are we even 
talking about? 

Physics tells  
what it does, 
but can't say 

what it is—
because 

even whatness 
is really something 
else. 

*

Our favorite books 
are made 
of poems, but 

what in the world 
are poems made of? 

Us, I guess—

hot plosives,
rough edges,
and incipient glances—

and that's just
what we are;

what 
were the chances?