"A Note from the Rock"

2006

Down through the ages I slid
to land on a shoal of bedsprings,
tight-webbed and full

of dreams but a poor stand-in  
for bedrock. The rock was what
I thought I wanted:

the rip, its blood bruise, its dare
I’d meet with calm and, above all,
without amazement.

A baffle-board, I would lob
amazement to where it gasped
before it had

a chance to crawl on my skin—
the amazing thing catching at
my very breath.


Amazement gone, what on earth
was I, then ? To what aspire?
Was there a sign?

With the little I know now of
summer haze and the winter
ice flower melting

on a dirty window, my bedrock
insouciance, showing fissure,
stares dumbly at

the snowflake, its six-gored lace,
like no other, unraveling in a
wet goodbye, goodbye..            

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