1

The Mistral dropped away:
leaves pause, still being.
Autumn has lost its breath.

2

His teacher’s open gaze:
the salts of life
in osmosis. Time’s slow gift.

3

Father … my moon:
zany, snow-bright -- or absent.
Uncle: low Orion.

4

The ancient road:
a line on the land’s worn face …
so deep we walk unseen.

5

What have you done? Cold, still
in the dark drawer.
What music falls? What chaos?

6

Our son: cinema,
bag of sweets … learning
that darkness is alluring.

7

Bread is home. Grain, water,
warm hands: an embryo
in the oven’s womb.

8

The dry time done, now
the dark nurses stride over the hill:
a rain cure.

9

Upstairs, at still noon.
Oil, in a hollow
of flesh. The Ring, recommenced.

10

Coach in the night: a pod
of loved ones, hurtling home,
dozing through danger.

11

You will lie still
soon enough, hopeful fly.
Move now; buzz; hit the windows.

12

My son knows dragons
better than Tuesday.
Wiles, lairs, breath: his daily charge.

13

Leaf serves earth last, as once
it sweetened air, fed fruit,
built heartwood. And you?

14

A sweet, warm wind, ripe
with soft contagion:
the strong man’s simple answers.

15

Nothing new, nor better
understood than in that gaze:
monkey, last light.

16

Luck: not robbed, not killed,
even in the high passes
where the ravens glide.

17

Working, fighting:
half-mad to reach the gate
of reproductive tribute.

18

We idlers decry, berate
those who stood, ran, tried, failed …
pitch, parliament.

19

Bare shoulders, before you:
a mast, to hang sail,
to lose fear, dance on air.

20

A north wind shakes the pines: calumny,
injustice, mishap.
Bow, bend … sing.

21

Tinnitus: old friend
whistling at nightfall, companion
on the cliff path.

22

Forest, winter: mute.
I bike by. One night in fifty, or less:
owl trace.

23

A laden ship, calm
under moonlight, hatches sealed.
The children, asleep.

24

Cold is absence.
You left early; now falls
the deep winter of the heart.

25

Work and love: old keys
to the great barn doors
which open on otherness.

26

Gorged on darkness, filled with emptiness,
that much-trodden path:
night being.

27

We three, wide-eyed, learning at the frozen lake:
ice sings, groans,
burns the hand.

28

One stays; two dozen fly.
The bigger the flock,
the fewer single minds.

29

That cheap figurine … but, in a small hand,
beyond price:
looked on, loved.

30

Stone still: only the eye
turns. Watch, or die. Wait,
wait, wait … act. Heron truths.

31

A spring: abrupt,
quiet, ample, pooled for tongue and sky alike.
The gift.

32

The wind ruffles chill green wheat, shakes
a copse of indifferent trees:
desire.

33

Brown spring; the earth a prison.
Yet … light’s magnet drags
out convict flowers.

34

It’s the same sun
that Homer felt, in his last fatigue:
grandiose, mute.

35

Even in war, the sunbeams
slant, hang, fall. Just breathe now.
Lit dust is peace.

36

Scent of strawberries, on the fingers,
cigar smoke, zest, sex:
being here.

37

All the presents now
discarded, lost or broken – save that one:
shared time.

38

Water, and a lip of soft rock.
Spring sunshine: jewels
for those with none.

39

Night cat, darting in bliss
(the syrup of freedom)
into the dark drain.

40

Rain, music, laughter –
quick, come under the eaves,
staunch time’s flow, or try.