My aging cat before the fire--
That's all it is, isn't it?
So much wiser than I.

To an image of the saint

O Francis! Were there not nights like this
when you, too, saw how it was?

Were I not in this place,
would I have asked to love you?
Would not the question have hung
between us and forever?
But in this moment, I am undefined,
without boundary, without end.
Had I folded my heart octavo,
would it have made any difference?
Or would the unchaining of ourselves
have continued apace?
Instead, the sky opens wide
and I am overcome.

I hold you as I would an autumn wind,
my days cradled in the cusp of your eyes.

empty, moonless sky
between us
the space I never saw

Metaphysics

Branches sprawl beautiful,
each leaf achingly real.

I unravel from the inside out,
an onion inverted,
shedding ego, non-ego
to step outside my bones
where I-not-I inhale
as the moon exhales
and this heart beats like gravity.

These unformed orbits,
our hearts' ungainly love
whose beautiful, aching being
yet pulls me open to the sky.

Arising

each moment the universe