Everything Is Ceremony In The Wild Garden

Love Is Short, But Forgetting Is Long.

I Stalk Certain Words... I Catch Them In Mid-flight, As They Buzz Past, I Trap Them, Clean Them, Peel Them, I Set Myself In Front Of The Dish, They Have A Crystalline Texture To Me, Vibrant, Ivory, Vegetable, Oily, Like Fruit, Like Algae, Like Agates, Like Olives... I Stir Them, I Shake Them, I Drink Them, I Gulp Them Down, I Mash Them, I Garnish Them... I Leave Them In My Poem Like Stalactites, Like Slivers Of Polished Wood, Like Coals, Like Pickings From A Shipwreck, Gifts From The Waves... Everything Exists In The Word.

I Love All Things, Not Because They Are Passionate Or Sweet-smelling But Because, I Don't Know, Because This Ocean Is Yours, And Mine: These Buttons And Wheels And Little Forgotten Treasures, Fans Upon Whose Feathers Love Has Scattered Its Blossoms, Glasses, Knives And Scissors -- All Bear The Trace Of Someone's Fingers On Their Handle Or Surface, The Trace Of A Distant Hand Lost In The Depths Of Forgetfulness.

Sonnet Xxv Before I Loved You, Love, Nothing Was My Own: I Wavered Through The Streets, Among Objects: Nothing Mattered Or Had A Name: The World Was Made Of Air, Which Waited. I Knew Rooms Full Of Ashes, Tunnels Where The Moon Lived, Rough Warehouses That Growled 'get Lost', Questions That Insisted In The Sand. Everything Was Empty, Dead, Mute, Fallen Abandoned, And Decayed: Inconceivably Alien, It All Belonged To Someone Else - To No One: Till Your Beauty And Your Poverty Filled The Autumn Plentiful With Gifts.

Sometimes A Piece Of Sun Burned Like A Coin In My Hand.