the grass

for jamie parsley

 moon--

I have pulled

opened and split

the grass
at the binding.
 It becomes

a curled tongue,

a compressed
nautilus,

a hive

of the sea

unending.

And

words, saturated

with earth

rise

like decanted

air, a mild

grief

between what blade

I’ve pulled

what blades

remain.

It takes time, adjusting
 to that dark.
To see.

My strong left

eye and my nearly blind

right argue

all the time.  Impatient,

the left has had

a lifetime of taking

over, the right

a lump in a wash

of amber blur.

I think I dream
though

with my right eye.

Maybe day

light is too bright.

Maybe the grass

I’ve opened

isn’t for reading

but for dreaming,

 for sensing

the root, for escorting
out
and
  up

and then
patting down the dark,

to smooth it over.

And finally,
When the words

are laid out
on the top

 of a long gone bottom, it’s

my right eye

that catches the pinch

first.  Because
in such dark

  it's what's left
that's at rest.

And listen:
the right has been waiting

 in all this learned

quiet.  It is

a monk’s robe opening

and with ocular

reserve,

stepping up

the Everest blade

without

anyone seeing that foot

lift at all,

or the one

clump of snow

fall, and slightly,

a butterfly flutter,
fall.

It's a simple drop
in wind
 to the tongue
of a blade
of grass.

without

moon,

I am speechless—

so I am given

 a dowsing rod.

I walk, each Y end

deep to my wrists

and each twitch

is a word.  Subtle,

my palms

can’t feel it.

I’m not quiet

quiet enough.

I am blind.

could you spare

the dust of your face?

I want to dip my rod

in you.  I want

to walk in a long row

of willow and listen

to them draw water,

feel my feet listen,

feel my knees,

my navel,

my breasts listen.  I want

to drop

 at the sudden

pull of it

 all out

in the middle

of know

wear

and dig repentant

for my thirst

and my blind

mouth…

with your powder

and this rod

and willow water:

mud

to rub against my tongue

and grow it again

word by word

i want to read

moon,

I want to read

your lips—

or better still,

inhale the bouquet

of your breath beneath

my hair, your air,

your vibrato,

your rain

decanted  

the length of my

Eustachian tube.

Gather there.

Flow there, tidal,

And I’ll tack into you

 wheel

larboard/starboard

and my skull

will seal your wind

in a globe

of snow.

And if,

later,

your breath

draws

to words and

 words could

impress bone—

or better still

  if marrow were a wick

  and each

breathed letter

a drop like

spermaceti,

please,

pause your jaw

and angle it,

ear to my surplice

eye.  Can you sense

my tension? My awe

 and oh, my bitter end

  

before condensing?

And then, the first pure

 drop rendered,

Falling?

  Let me cask you

 in flesh dipped

  in celadon,

 

a Genesis clay

 on my flat spade.

I’ll cradle

and rake you.

Glaze and bake

and age you

in the strait

of fluent glaze

as it pervades

then tempers

  until we’re twined,

slaked in a kiln

 of blue breath,

your lips the triple point

of our intersection:

an unction

of mud and blood

and air

that, when decanted

is… but you’ll know.

It is.  It simply is.

naming

moon,

I should wait

long, long

 and never shut

my eyes entirely

to find your  name.

I must, in the nudity

of whiskey’s neat

water, wait, yes

 wait

for you to fall,

to vanish,

to, in the pool

 my face may graze,

delay the break

in the clouds

seeding there.

Where whole herds

and flocks of things

gather.

And an antelope,

whose tiny hairs

and velvet muzzle

find their way to you

   in a dark that can prompt

no shadow, pressure,

or caress. Their thirst

 gathers above it all.

 Or a Tiger

Swallowtail,

paused

 in such a dark

awaiting

something

warmer.

I think my surrender

is too shallow.

And my naming

too hurried.

What remains

of the night

at the shoreline

when everything

else has left,

is that what I name?

And while I don’t know clouds

I do know they are not

reflection, I know they

cannot, cannot

be contained

because what is named

needs space

enough to sense

edges,

to trust a cloud’s

  cloister, distinct,

and ever thin

on the surface,

a chrysalis

grown entirely

inside it all

just so it can break

through it all.

You teach me

 how to wait.

I’m afraid I’m not

all that patient.

I’m afraid

my tongue

 moves

faster

than my feet.

  I’m afraid

once a word falls

 it never seems to

fit.  Maybe if I looked

at you, in broad

 enough darkness

  with an umbrella

beneath my chin,

all my senseless letters

will fall and sough,

harmless—and hushed,

 and words would sift

with the dignity

of warmth,

the way a vein

on a butterfly wing

 will swallow

heat

and ebb it into

 the edges

and then fall,

 in unseeable drops

pushing it all down

then up,

up,

beautifully up,

again

and again,

and again,

into the air.

Sitting here,

not long enough,

I begin to think

there is some betrayal

in trying to name all this.

Isn’t there.  Something

of it is too convoluted,

time in the dark too short. 

Teach me. 

Teach me to look long

and say nothing,

to know

and not need, easily,

 to name at all.

who, told, a barren womb

I know you

 are full now

moon--

the astronomers

have told me.

They chart you.

They don't know you

but they chart you.

How more intimate

a woman

who charts

herself,

a womb longing

for a child,

a song of a child

and a chair to rock in?

You are full and reflective.

Enter her,

won't you?

Make her round

with you--

as you wax and wait

and wax and wait,

make your glow

shine out of her eye,

around her belly--

chart her!

to listen...

moon,

why I do

not listen

long enough?

I need more

of birds

and their strained

bravery

even the jay’s

loud crusade,

or finch, or wren

to perforate

this cotton

 dawn.

The voice in the bowl

of my throat

holds an ounce of you,

 and the steady

 tremble of its spoon

is dipped in sound,

a ditch at once

deep and cryptic

yet never sprung or sung,

 never sprung or sung.

Moon, if you were

a tool

of music

 you would be wood-

wind,

a flute,  a fife,  

of maple, or cedar

 or African blackwood,

their years rooted

to a something of you,

 the you who rose

 and set,

night against night,

within them.

It’s here where

 you inspire

  

a beginner’s

deep-scored inhale

a held  

first breath,

until

 what exhales

 are atoms   

  depth charge

sinking to the last

breath to detonate.  I expect

  

 something unmeasured,

yet deliberate.

 See?  I need more

ear…

All of this

because I’ve

 not swallowed

enough of you.

I am yet eyes

and hands

 and cannot

 touch you…or see…

My breathing

is a deceptive penetrator.

It is unmooring.  I choke,

 hold my throat.

but wind…wind is

a pressed finger

or a hover

above the hole, or

the ear alone

 that tunes the letting go.

I am no oboe,

or piccolo,

no other woods

 or brass to last

into your retreat.

I have my throat

 and my view

and where you grow

 in the sky

your shape

 my heed creates.

Yet how much

 sound can the sky

condense?

Before all my silence

comes back,

my months of noise

osculate,

quiver over

 the mouthpiece,

the slow air chamber,

 and when it’s breathed,

finds its way to you

a hermit

 thrush reciting

all its life

has learned

  

while  you begin

to return

and I breathe

 my way into you

eyeless, handless

pure, first (and last)

breath.