Status Updates From New Collected Poems: Poems,...

To the Holy Spirit

O Thou, far off and here, whole and broken,
Who in necessity and in bounty wait,
Whose truth is light and dark, mute though spoken,
By Thy wide grace showed me Thy narrow gate.

True harvests no mere intent may reap.
Finallywe must lie down to sleep
And leave the world, all we desire
To darkness, malevolence, and fire.
Who wakes and stands his shadow’s mark
Has passed by mercy through the dark.
We save the good, lovely, and bright
By will in part, in part delight,
But they live through the night by grace
That no intention can efface.

I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.

"One faith is bondage. Two
are free. In the trust
of old love, cultivation shows
a dark graceful wilderness
at its heart. Wild
in that darkness, we roam
the distances of our faith,
safe beyond the bounds
of what we know. O love,
open. Show me
my country. Take me home."

Trying to sleep, I cannot
take my mind away.
The bright day

shines in my head
like a coin
on the bed of a stream.

fox tracks in the snow, the impact
of lightness upon lightness,
unendingly silent.

III
If a man finds it necessary to eat garbage, he should resist the temptation to call it a delicacy.

IV
Don’t pray for the rain to stop. Pray for good luck fishing when the river floods.

V
Don’t own so much clutter that you’ll be relieved to see your house catch fire.

Going slowly, marking my favorites…

I see that my mind is not good enough.
I see that I am eager to own the earth and to own men.
I find in my mouth a bitter taste of money,
a gaping syllable I can neither swallow nor spit out.
I see all that we have ruined in order to have, all
that was owned for a lifetime to be destroyed forever.

Where are the sleeps that escape such dreams?

Like Snow

Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out.