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“Sleep is not death 
but forgotten birds.” 
—David Hoag 

1 

The black-cassocked crow 
broods in the eucalyptus 
where blood-red umbellates 
breathe out the odor of camphor. 
As the graves grow green 
and spring missiles its 
multitudinous wings,  
his shadow falls and 
falls and  
further falls  
over the grasses, 
over the greening, 
beyond the growing. 

2 

Listening to kites 
I hear all along  
the long string 
the wind vibrating, 
its wild hum, a poly 
rhythm strummed 
in air. This paper bird 
pasted to a thin wooden 
cross flies in the sky 
like a fragile Icarus, 
kept in air only by the thinnest  
skein of desire. 

I’d like to get away from earth,  
soar to the sun, hide  
in the spaces between 
stars, but always  
with some thread  
to find my way home 
to the labyrinth. 

3 

The cirrus blooms once, 
one night only its opaline 
fragrance gossamers the saguaro,  
prickly pear, and manzanita, then 
withdraws into a dark tuber to await 
another blossoming in another year. 

But every morning, every  
afternoon, dark finger 
tipped wings circle  
the desert sky, their narrowing gyres 
the vortex of death. In dreams 
I swirl down toward darkness as  
a pearl-like flower rises higher 
and higher above me. 

4 

The day I cut the locusts 
on Huckleberry Island, 
my chain saw spitting 
thick sappy sawdust into  
the heavy air, one tree,  
bound and tethered by ivy, 
wouldn’t fall.  
I guyed it with ropes and  
cut it in sections 
then noticed I had cut 
a bird’s nest in half, 
the fledgling jay clinging 
to the severed cup.  

That night I dreamed the bird, 
terror of staccato saw and 
our black cat climbing. 
The next morning I ran 
to see the nest. 

5 

I flew to Christ in fits 
and starts, yet he caught,  
held me in the tight  
fist of his grace. 
When I fled from his nails  
he opened his palm 
to let me fly. Kited 
by his fierce love, I soared 
toward the surgical sun 
then swooned into the nest 
of his cupped right hand. 
His crown was beryl and  
bloodstone. His left arm  
was raised to the square.