i feel the world is turning
and somewhere in my journeys
i will find you real and waiting
four heartbeats before and
three breaths behind you feel
me in the morning holding still
like the quiet distances ahead
of me where are you in the night
that you watch me breathing
deep in our garden

– 1992

Portrait of Girl in Gloves by Ruth Channing

Studied
Underneath
Nuanced
Delicate
Alien
Yours

knuckle
to
spine
clarity

bone
fist
airborne
and stand waiting

it will hit back

architecture of her
fingers
and wrists
moon shine
dreams
switchback
tracked/luminous
dinner left on the table
wolves in her garden
if only of the
night she could make
a whole life fabricated,
then lived

i am stubborn
i am full of dreams
i am hidden
i am soft
i am thinking of the Atlantic
i am round
i am impatient
i am stronger than i look

three stones, three birds
and I am grounded but would fly
rounded by the river, soft and manic in my hands
seven at the current will

and I am grounded but would fly
swim and soar, still
seven at the current will
embers yes breath

swim and soar, still
rounded by the river, soft and manic in my hands
embers yes breath
three stones, three birds

*previously published in “Manorborn” (Abecedarian Books, Inc. – 2007)

she is a collector
building a collection takes time
it needs depth, layers, disparate tones and hues
though the origin is shared
in the collector

she is the one
with growing body and soul

she shrinks and expands
fast joy, slow sadness
like wood to weather

consistently prefers jewels over pastels,
dark over light,
she gets a feel of things
takes the rush
then retreats

she aspires
she resonates
she finds a cheap string of glass beads (blue and clear)
to hang in her window
(certain time of day, sun dropping: rainbows abound)

for a long time she thinks she is dead
that she has sunk to the bottom of the sea: her home, her prison – the weight of it
and no longer has the strength to surface

but, then again, maybe not

she has been gathering:
leaves, stories, words, moments, strands, cities, seabird calls, wheels whispering pavement…

and something awakens

maybe it was her boss:
breaking her down
shaking her tree
(like her first college writing professor)

stirring the gathered stillness of her fear, her abandonment of change

or the distant boom rolling out from the dynamite in the hills
or the sun made moon in the clouds

her creativity, her life force unburied
by a spell of words written in a book
strength in the broken places
bullshit according to the doctors
treasure to one, trash from another

wisdom, she begins to think, is no less true for its inconstancy

collecting, curating, composing: a natural progression
tidal
sea to land, land to sea
the promises she made
where sea met sand

that she would return to swim, surf, sink and surface
and then dry:
a line between land and sea

the promises she broke,
all of it
leading to this

this moment
in her gunmetal blue car in the parking lot on a harbor
watching the day give
where the christmas lights strung from a boat
burn