THE FIRST (2007)

here is the second:
we both step off airplanes in some place
we may or may not 
consider a home
and when we see each other
it isn’t across some great distance
but i’m scanning the passing crowds
when i feel you gentle tap on my shoulder.

in the third, neither of us is
caught off guard because
it happens out of planning and convenience.
we are both too aware of the approach
for confusion or mistakes.

the fourth and fifth are something similar
with the details modified 
(a momentary lack of recognition, delays
and the expected complexities of reunions).

but the first --

here is the first:
i am sitting alone
in my one-person home
meditating on thoughts that will be read
by no one
but you.
and a knock.

TO YOU. (2007)

When two pause on the edge of a vastness
one seeing water and one seeing glass
Who will step forward as the other falls 
back into a past of certainty?

I reel in reverse and the resulting illusion
is enough to lose this moment in
an instance of eternity.
A sort of virgin journey for a 
weathered traveler of the land,
     tolerating a permanent adventure.

So who will understand the map and 
border between our lives?
And who will admire your crossing the 
divide to resume this uncertain pursuit?

When time does recoil to nine days a
week where we stood by Sebago
and pondered our depths in the rain
did the water seem to soak up the drops?
Or did they bounce off?

POTENTIAL ENERGY (2005)

Let us awake this summer morning
  to the reservation of dawn.
And before we are able to comprehend motion
or time, we’ll measure the distance and
space of a fallen dew drop,
Hesitate before the sun exhales, and then
step into its crepuscular rays of direction
(split the sky vertically;
split my progression laterally)
The trees are vying for that same radiance
of resting potential—even now we still fail to realize
that both motion and time are centripetal.
The exchange of our walking language is
a sublimation of the truths we wade through
made into a fresh energy—defying gravity
amongst the clouds.

On a park bench the physics return to me—
a blue canopy made empty except
for the tanning interaction.
You are my equal
You are my opposite.
One dandelion seed separates from its stem
and despite the hushed wind
it will not rest.
I am the mass.
You are the acceleration.
Who is the outside force?

SEVEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A MOOSE (2005)

i
a winding road divides the woods;
the concrete river opens to a straightaway
and a moose saunters off the pavement,
disappearing into the thickets.

ii
i woke up at dawn to see the mist pulling
the sky into the pond
everything was still except for the shifting
gray spaces of haze
and a ripple expanding near the far bank

iii
i see the world through expectations and reflections
in my dream i was startled by a moose
and later realized it was (only) a deer

iv
in the soft illumination of departure
two with no certain destination
one pushed toward a moose
the other obstructed by it

v
a bone still flecked with loose fragments of flesh
exists as an artifact of death
and what we are supposed to find

vi
on top of a mountain a man sees only the path worn 
and the path waiting
not the peak itself
his saturated desire
finds the moose invisible

vii
first a statue settling into the blue cool
then an antlered rock hidden in silence
now fluttering wings that listen and 
cling to the sliding surface of the water
now velvet brown emerging into light and air

I LOVE YOU (2005)

Elaborate plans can’t be elaborately unfolded
spread out over wounds like a bandage
or left out to dry.
When I saw the way we crumbled
and our fate was creased
from three heated words 
I discovered that Plan B
doesn’t account for what is unseen.
Between "you" and "I" there were more
than four letters held tightly together
by the structure of fate.
Why didn’t I wait to relay the next
step of action in our plan of attack;
a cold lack of willpower,
connecting time with loving me.