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once in the dark in the walled cities

that long tenacity after

light) I stand in the hand of the universe, pronouncing

names that can be given but not

defined. Not the absolute

names, but given as mariners before Columbus

named shadows on the sea's horizon,

reserving places on maps

for new destinations. The kaleidoscope eye, measuring

distances (living to dead, known

to surmised), superimposes

doubled images and swivels its focus from secret

to open to secret city, here

where we have always lived

looking through light as we look through the air.

FORTYEIGHT

Arrival

Pride is useful

like whatever strikes

hard enough to break.

Now there is walking around

the foreign outside of familiar interiors

looking for openings.

Do not suppose the lion

dominating the foreground is the old hero.

Notice her thick skin

and the stink of the blood of others.

I am not to presume

to know whom else she selects.

What Can't be Told Can Be Shone

David's call returns me from words to voices

Those tremors on membrane

Light reflecting from his eye did rattle

Once into mine and rattles yet finely

Still I breathe adept this dry later air

His sound reminds me how knowing invisibly captures

And burns along synapses

Teaching even the knees

How like a fish its water place

Or the blind trusting the city

I can tell my own on my skin

FORTYNINE

Walking my dog in the immediate

sleeping neighborhood passing among

constructions of dreaming that enclose homesteads

and by day the crafted elegance

of fantasy holding these lives in these postures

I can't keep within my own fantasy

its mantle eludes the sturdy

declarative bounded presence that finder

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