in this snow-dark wood i by wolves am torn asunder raise your glass to their howl for today i followed after the tracks of an absent otter who soundless belly-slid toward one round black hole on this ice-trimmed river from the fragile edge; there all tracks end, there always one moment perches on the brink … More if tonight
In early October along the river’s edge, deer hooves have printed the mud with quotation marks, although they had nothing to report. They drank the cold water in silence and slipped back into the woods. It’s not yet five o’clock but the sun is already stumbling sideways and falling behind the Wisconsin treeline, rays flailing … More Undone
And we will see there only ordinary things, constellations of dew, only miracles. I will meet you in the woods And we will carry there only our temporal minds, bodies, spirits, only these eternal. I will meet you in the woods And we will find there only things deep and green and growing, only decay. … More I Will Meet You in the Woods
Waterbugs unzipping the seam of river, hundreds of Vs opening before me, it is warm but I know what lies ahead the mirrored clouds afloat on the smooth surface in the late August twilight now sink to the riverbed like cotton candy autumn leaves while fat walleye heave and leave blooms of mud behind in … More Falling Through
I’ve cast the three who lived (thrown, broken, mending) upon the river of the world (flown, dammed, bending) they drift in solemn leisure (whether will or chance or fate) like shining broken windows (not shy not strong not vain) their wings catch specks of twilight (the eddies hold them fast). Three pulled toward the lake … More Casting Die
Out in a windswept January night under the black quilt of sky that is tucked tightly over the Keweenaw peninsula, the stone foundation of a barn lies unsleeping; instead she’s feeling, like a phantom limb, the heft and surety of the hay mow, the ache of splintered barn boards, the impatience of the rusted tractor, … More Phantom Limb
Adam’s heart suddenly shuttered but now dives and flutters in a waiting rib cage not his own – a cardinal who lost his song he hopped up strong, he perched on the sill and pecked at the pane he pecked at the pain asking to be let in to be let out so another could … More Auld Lang Syne
I have staked out a sliver of an acre in this king-sized country where I am held carefully in the dark like the opening quotes and the first few words of a song – through the open window I can hear the world as it grows lighter, I hear sandhill cranes trilling to each other … More Suspension
Moon waxing gibbous/ in cotton candy twilight;/ ravenous, my heart/
the queen is dead long live the queen I kneel in the twilight river my knees on the sand I plunge myself under and break the surface to the north I baptize myself I am a new creation the water rolling into the water the water taking the water back again the light shattering across … More coronation
Halfway North 