the last poem

The last poem of the year isn't a poem. A prayer,
it speaks its wish to the crisping air: There's
a knowing song, long-known, but hidden
in the sway of dry, yellow stalks. It was given
to sing-in the seasons. Hear it lessen and grow
louder with the starling-clouds, their bulging black snow
against putty-gray skies. They'll stretch thin again,
and the song. Can the song sing us an ever when
any what, not what we think, but who, mothering
itself from one to many, joins with us, and sings?

seconds chance

Knock-around seconds chance me
second chances, and third,
to learn. I've heard it, the whir
of mingling purple minutes, blurred
singly and together. Encircling me
they move me. They herd me
into smaller circles,
or spirals, the circles
lessening. The lesson is
the lessening, and the beauty
of chances missed. Of me, and learning.

curiouser

The curious clues come to you. On pale blue and white,
the cloud ring's unfinished. I can't wish it, what contrite
letter it might
                     spell. I miss a yellow smudge of light.
It lived where indigos went, until it fell from night,
one hard bringer of the soft-hearted news.
                                                                A squatter
spider, yes she was squatting. The moon's youngest daughter,
she couldn't hide from her, her appetites, her eagerness
for flight. She wished what I couldn't, and left no meager threads.

strings

There are strings. Nine strings? No, nine of some-wheres,
plus one black when. Back then, they weren't strummed, but they're
vibrating to, or from something. Something flat. Real is flat. Real and
flatter than. The fattest lie is the fastest why I can come up with. I can
tell you: I've lived this sigh before. Not a sigh, so much. As a breath
between, death's hidden in the greens, and life. Life's again. Then's death.

penance

The purpling penance must be
   paid. These pounds of flesh do cost
more than they used to. I wish
   I was funnier, but it's raining.

hangling

What's dangling is
   I sing-song to the yellow spider
hangling, upside down  I sing-song
   to the fellow  Follow me, and he follows
He slides on his spinners,
   impossibly thin, with a hunger that shines
from many eyes  I'll sing-song him
   back to dangle, entangled
hanglings, in our is

bounces

The bounce is. Big or small, it's not up and down. It's
doing undone, and the undone doing again. I've been
where black mud gulps the bay's edge. I've judged
the water too brown to live. The tide'll slide back, and give
the mud undoing. The water will liven with the knowing
glances of a heron.