Glosses on texts by William Desmond
I’m nothing but books;
I keep reading in my sleep.
Homo Lector. I
wake to the abyss
of moonlit song. Mockingbirds
in the deep garden,
communication
of the full with the full. Note:
‘Erotic seeking
of the other re-
leased by the fullness.’ I am
charmed by all your songs.
The poet is like
the lover in the old type-
scene, waits by the door,
sings his heart out, waits.
His art is mostly patience.
He sits with the dog
of the house, glad for
the companionship, happy
to learn a new song,
the song of the dog.
What is not in the house is
within your dog-self.
The fast of the mind.
Learning about waves from waves
at Napatree Point.
Becoming not being.
I watch waves becoming waves
on the horizon
and dark origin
shines as it disappears. That
metaphysical
distinction trues the
waves becoming image in
my watercolor.
The moon outside her
bedroom window as we wait
for the tide to turn.
The smells of curry
from our takeout will mix
with the salt of sex
when the time comes. She
had a little haiku book
we’d read together.
Alone now I watch
the doubled moon in the eel
grass rising and falling.
The tea house quiet
on this frigid Saturday.
Enthusiasms
curbed at the hori-
zon of cold community.
Nobody’s leaving.
Over us holds a
rare fermata, already
the held note sustained.
These old bones can’t take
many more slips in the tub
or on the dark stairs.
Vulnerable too
to Eternity passing
over beautiful
faces. Then there’s you.
You light up the spaces be-
tween my best/worst lines.
As the backyard lights
up after one of those nights,
with the noise and blaze
of Steller’s jays, day’s
inscape and time’s breakthrough stands
for meditation:
God is constant in
the instant at a distance.
And we feed the birds.
