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From the ninth-century Irish poem Pangur Bán and I at work, Adepts, equals, cat and clerk: His whole instinct is to hunt, Mine to free the meaning pent. More than loud acclaim, I love Books, silence, thought, my alcove. Happy for me, Pangur Bán Child-plays round some mouse’s den. Truth to tell, just being here, Housed alone, housed together, Adds up to its own reward: Concentration, stealthy art. Next thing an unwary mouse Bares his flank: Pangur pounces. Next thing lines that held and held Meaning back begin to yield. All the while, his round bright eye Fixes on the wall, while I Focus my less piercing gaze On the challenge of the page. With his unsheathed, perfect nails Pangur springs, exults and kills. When the longed-for, difficult Answers come, I too exult. So it goes. To each his own. No vying. No vexation. Taking pleasure, taking pains, Kindred spirits, veterans. Day and night, soft purr, soft pad, Pangur Bán has learned his trade. Day and night, my own hard work Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.

The aftermath always happening like an airplane falling, or a man midair falling from a horse, and an arrow, a gun, many guns pointing away, at us, our all bull’s-eye-on-the-mark. This is what he sees when he sees. Maybe Wrong or not, the appropriation, the film clip, chase, pressed lips over lips, photo moment on the minute-drawn breath in, the over, the under, bodies in black and white cut to pose, the way a kiss can pose, dispose of everything around it for another, dispose of thinking. It’s like waving good-bye. Mouth to mouth seeing as saying. Inside. Resuscitation back to the brain saying yes as the mouth makes an O. Circles for the digital age, colored dots for faces already made for erasing. Hurry, come, he, 6’7”, sees fifteen minutes from the Mexican border, cremates his old paintings up close. But the ashes were kept in a book urn, not so afloat in the ocean with my parents,Above, On, and Under (with Mermaid)

If today and today I am calling aloud If I break into pieces of glitter on asphalt bits of sun, the din if tires whine on wet pavement everything humming If we find we are still in motion and have arrived in Zeno’s thought, like if sunshine hits marble and the sea lights up we might know we were loved, are loved if flames and harvest, the enchanted plain If our wishes are met with dirt and thyme, thistle, oil, heirloom, and basil or the end result is worry, chaos and if “I should know better” If our loves are anointed with missiles Apache fire, Tomahawks did we follow the tablets the pilgrims suggested If we ask that every song touch its origin just once and the years engulfed If problems of identity confound sages, derelict philosophers, administrators who can say I am found if this time you, all of it, this time now If nothing save Saturdays at the metro and if rain falls sidelong in the platz doorways, onto mansard roofs If enumerations of the fall and if falling, cities rocked with gas fires at dawn Can you rescind the ghost’s double nakedness hungry and waning if children, soldiers, children taken down in schools if burning fuel Who can’t say they have seen this and can we sing this if in the auroras’ reflecting the sea, gauze touching the breast Too bad for you, beautiful singer unadorned by laurel child of thunder and scapegoat alike If the crowd in the mind becoming crowded in street and villages, and trains run next to the freeway If exit is merely a sign

The moon shears up on Tahoe now: A panther leaps to a tamarack bough. She crouches, hugging the crooked limb: She hears the nearing steps of him Who sent the little puff of smoke That stretched her mate beneath the oak. Her eyes burn beryl, two yellow balls, As Fate counts out his last footfalls. A sudden spring, a demon cry, Carnivorous laughter to the sky. Her teeth are fastened in his throat (The moon rides in her silver boat.) And now one scream of long delight Across the caverns of the night!

Perhaps the universe is an extinguished building with blue banners strung along and the forest, more like a commodity bordering bushes and asphalt, something else to string our blue banners on. Never was restoration swifter: the leafless trees, the asphalt less splintered and more splendid. Never was restoration swifter with its mightier solutions, less splintered and more splendid snipers, dynamiters, colorful bombs. We please ourselves with mightier solutions, picnics under blue spruces snipers, dynamiters, colorful bombs the guardians of what we might call “home rights.” At picnics, under blue spruces we clamor after the news and its employees, the guardians of “home rights” “the media” mustering “one mind.” It’s news, the decision to nobly save rather than meanly lose some pretense of mustering “one mind” secures its truth. The decision to nobly save rather than meanly lose our flag secures its truth as a squirrel secures its nuts by hiding them in the ground. Our flag— a souvenir of having been here before a squirrel’s nuts, deep in the ground. But travel, travail, and The Method’s mistakes all souvenirs of having been here before, haunt us and taunt us and call us names. But travail, travel, and Method’s mistakes mark a different season, nuts rotting, bulbs blooming. Each season haunts us and taunts us and calls us names until finally the universe is an extinguished building, a different season, nuts rotting, bulbs blooming and the forest, a commodity.

Taking on an aspect of the Orient, Skies full of hatchets and oranges Love, uninvited, hangs in the blood: But what is a kingdom to a dying emperor? Skies full of hatchets and oranges Keep the birds singing, sorrows fresh— But what is a kingdom to a dying emperor, As the nights grow steadily into mountains. Keep the birds singing, sorrows fresh— The princess braids these into a necklace As the nights grow steadily into mountains, Why, even regrets recede unexpectedly. The princess braids these into a necklace: Roads and rivers that lead away from the palace. Why, even regrets recede unexpectedly In a solitude full of wars and songs. Roads and rivers that lead away from the palace Never converge in that vast landscape; In a solitude full of wars and songs, The words remain light and fugitive. Never converge in that vast landscape In the way that stars keep their distance. The words remain light and fugitive In an anticipation crossed with absence. In the way that stars keep their distance, Love, uninvited, hangs in the blood In an anticipation crossed with absence, Taking on an aspect of the Orient.

If there is a word in the lexicon of love, it will not declare itself. The nature of words is to fail men who fall in love with men. It will not declare itself, the perfect word.Boyfriend seems ridiculous: men who fall in love with men deserve something a bit more formal. The perfect word? Boyfriend? Ridiculous. But partner is . . . businesslike— we deserve something a bit less formal, much more in love with love. But if partner is businesslike, then lover suggests only sex, is too much in love with love. There is life outside of the bedroom, and lover suggests only sex. We are left with roommate, or friend. There is life, but outside of the bedroom. My friend and I rarely speak of one another. To my left is my roommate, my friend. If there is a word in the lexicon of love, my friend and I rarely speak it of one another. The nature of words is to fail.

dreaming the lives of the ancestors, you awake, justly terrified of this world: you could dance underwater and not get wet, you hear, but the pressure is drowning you: you’re awake, but just terrified of this world, where all solids are ice:underwater boogie, you hear, but the press sure is drowning you: the igbo were walking, not dancing: where all solids are ice,underwater boogie is good advice, because they’re quick to melt: the igbo were straight up walking, not dancing: and you’ve still got to get through this life: take my advice, quickly: they’re melting: you could dance underwater and not get wet: and you’ve got to, to get through this life still dreaming the lives of the ancestors

Our lives avoided tragedy Simply by going on and on, Without end and with little apparent meaning. Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes. Simply by going on and on We managed. No need for the heroic. Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes. I don't remember all the particulars. We managed. No need for the heroic. There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows. I don't remember all the particulars. Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus. There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows. Thank god no one said anything in verse. The neighbors were our only chorus, And if we suffered we kept quiet about it. At no time did anyone say anything in verse. It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us, And if we suffered we kept quiet about it. No audience would ever know our story. It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us. We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor. What audience would ever know our story? Beyond our windows shone the actual world. We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor. And time went by, drawn by slow horses. Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world. The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog. And time went by, drawn by slow horses. We did not ourselves know what the end was. The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog. We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues. But we did not ourselves know what the end was. People like us simply go on. We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues, But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy. And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.

My route lassos the outskirts, the reclusive, the elderly, the rural— the poor who clan in their tarpaper islands, the old ginseng hunter Albert Harm, who strings the "crow's foot" to dry over his wood stove. Shy eyes of fenced-in horses follow me down the rutted dirt road. At dusk, I pedal past white birches, breathe the smoke of spring chimneys, my heart working uphill toward someone hungry for word from the world. I am Mercury, bearing news, my wings a single-speed maroon Schwinn bike. I sear my bright path through the twilight to the sick, the housebound, the lonely. Messages delivered, wire basket empty, I part the blue darkness toward supper, confident I've earned this day's appetite, stronger knowing I'll be needed tomorrow.