1

I am beginning to see you
because I have stopped to open my
eyes
how often was I stumbling
fair is the morning and
fair is the night
no more wailing
i stood at the door a long
time weeping
and then wrote down the misery of
all that had been
how with pen and paper
to describe this life
everytime i try it melts
away like manna
i love you
i would
describe
you do inscribe such
sacred things in me
and silence me




2
now, at last i love you
and maybe even a little myself
now i begin to touch you and
can't tell anyone else
i whisper it
i know it
i knead it
you feed me,and touch me with such care
and where we are going
i cannot say

i thought i had stopped looking for you and long after i had stopped, i walked in, i sat down, i gave it a chance' the seeker never faltered, the star never stopped hanging
now after thirty years i am at the very beginning of beginning and while the darkness of the night is thinning to let in the day' in colg january grace i begin to find you finding me

i have decided, i have decided, i have...
i aven't decided anything
i am going to let you be and let me be and i am going to give in to the singing
at the end of the sighing, and the tearing apart of the sky there is rejoicing
there is this opening up
if i give myself to the music all the world''s been making, will i find you in the end
or will i find ou that we have always been finding each other?

God bless all here who are tired,
who are weary who are wintered
over, who do not think they will
make it through another day
bless the community of the
pimpld, the chaffed, the
unshaven and the thinned out
and gather them in where
all is gathered into one
give love to the one who
cannot go on any longer
and weakness to she who
is to strong
and to those broken down
a song
vimru
Amen

how long has it been since
you lay long beside me
how long has it been
since that length
inside me
how long must i wait,
how long must i love
and keep keep praying
over and over again
making songs of
lust'and of long...
longing

this is nothing like the terror in which i
conducted my old life, and yet i am still
half jumpy like the pulse of electric
through the wire, over things i cannot
tie together or control. do you ever
get tired of trying to manage the ri
vers o you soul and dam them up
before they spill over? over this
hill is the next day and i am
still trying to manage the week.
one voice gently says, if any
voice is saying anything:
peace

so you will cover me in water
and not in dogma
and you will lather me in oil
in hands like my own
and i iwll own this thing that
people tried to take from me
and i will carve you from my
own face'and we will
amek each other
this is the most frightful truth
andthis is the most freeing thing
and at the end of my quest is
the beginning of resting
in this bed
and in you
and the striving
the living
the so called dying
everything we screamed for was just a breath away

no, not to mount sinai, but to the bath,
and to the fever dream, to the moment
of silence where, long ago,
our first ancestro
met you, and bathing,
and washing and
living dicoveredthese
were the gifts
and this was the path
and chose to
followand if fllow him,
and a million
and then, i follow
my own soul, tonight with the
light of one
candle in this path.
the path away from the
wayness from myself
and to your house,
my heart
they are the same

oh dark night
cold as iron
black as four a.m.
i am waiting here and now
i here the baby
oh burning log
oh soft sung hymn
let me say no ill thing
i will love everything
teach me to cease
believing in non believing

i don't know facts
i don't know anything
i only know how to be
a virgin
i only know that
the baby is me

How long i wrote of loving you
how long i longed to love you.
i knew you were kissing me but could
only keepy faith, keep faith until
i stopped believing.
and we must not say too much,
we must not speak too long or
else we will jinx it do not
step on the crack or i cannot
get you back
oh, no, take me to your temple
every old day your mercies
are brand new
and you are my gentle
father and devoted mother
giving birth to me

truth rises to meet me with the speed of light,
and tongue tied, I pray she will forgive me for
all the stories i put over her face.
truth comes quicker than lightning,
like the earth to meet the falling
penny and before i'm dashed i pray
she'll pity me
pity a fool who wills to
shape the earth to what
its not and make of
mysteries definition
pity us in our decisions,
whitewashing twice
to make the burning fire ice

I need to love every inch of your skin
more than you know it
i need to hallow every crevice
with my tongue and run
my lips over the smoothness
of your tattooed skin
let me in, let me in,
and love me wholly
or not at all

fish me out
there is no doubt that
if
you are a catcher of men
you are meant to pull me in
i won't deny the pain of denying you
i won't let go of how i'm hiding
the longing
for the taste of you
and then
there is this
i am longing for your skin
i am wishing so hard it is yearning
to be let in
and the truth is everything is wearing thin
until allis fire
and i am sitting here
rising here in my sitting
and in my center
i want there to be nothing
but skin between us
weave us in that web
wrap me in your net

we are here at the lovers' fair
grandma sits in her rocking chair
smiling in compassion
cause once she had passion
her old body has been here
and so it is young forever
and i need your forever
and this ic clear
there is only bitterness
if one has not been on the rides
and walked by the tides
on the shores of the lovers; fair

i am waiting to be delivered
so don't you worry about
the thinness of things
and the lie it brings
to count on that which
can't be tasted
wasted here in deserts
like moses before your bush
i am burning but
i want to be consumed
if god heard me crying he
knew all this while i was dying i
was crying out for life
crying out for jazz
indeed, crying out for ass
looking at you i saw
life

you are the shape of love and pleasure to me
you are the only treasure i see
i am in lust more than in love
for you
what you do is stand there
and what i do is desire
green and brown
the love of earth
and water is more than
fire
and only this constant contemplation
will matter

part of me
is still angry with you
part of me
resents the crime you did not
do
i'm upset
for being such a slut
i'm upset for fucking you
and fucking it up
i'm upset for all the
restraint
how i tried to keep a lock
on my self
and then i sat on your cock
and i'm ashamed
for fucking my friend
and i'm upset
because i want it again

it is to this i come
it is to you i run
lord, i know now
if our hearts are one
you will be one
and if i am looking for my sister
i will have missed her seeking
her in church this sunday
or monday at the place i quickest
call home
and when everyone in world
and in exasperation calls to you
falls to you then we are same
and names have ceased to matter

i want to stand at the end of all drama
as he God knows
i don't want to make war even with myself
and i don't want to sound bells for what isn't true
walking on city streets is just like being in a small
town and the city will not save you
i see pleasant people walking all
about
and no place can save you
from the hell six inches away
of people who spend all their days
half dead
half working
and unhelpful
and on the way home last night
i was startled from a nap
with a crook in my neck,
by th crudest screaming people
but i was too tired to get up and walk away
and i drifted in and out and today
i know
part of punishment of hell
is not being able to leave
and the joy of heaven comes in walking

say to the mother of nations
lay down love on the land
say to the queen of peace
teach me to release my hand
every prophet started true
and then you, like him,
said a little bit more
and a little bit more has screwed
up everything
so what i mean is
oeace,,, what i mean is
what i wish is
peace

if i say now
all is one, then will you let me leave it like that?
and will you not make it a prophecy
simply let me leave it like that
and if you ask me how i know
and how all the weeds that grow in our sidewalk
cracking pavement are just wasting time
then the knowing comes with breathing
and i know just like beliving
that he is one
and in the end as
atthe start
then she will be one
and the god of war
at least cries to his sister peace
lay down love on te land
lay now your love on
the land

oh my love
and oh my deep and sweet eternal fortune
teach me to lust
teach me to be desperate
teach me to desire that which i cannot have
i want to be set on fire
i tire of this fear of burning
that cools all the hot blood
and jades all the yearning
and calls itself wisdom

now i know you love me
and now its time to love you
we both know how i doubted
and on this long journey i was hard
hearted, the dust made me so
and slow to trust
and even though you said wait
even though the rose on the thorn
peeled away bore the fruit of your grace
i was to old and bitter to feel it
to worn out to be new
but you have brought me to this life
and all you loving
and so i come to you
and so i walk with you
and so i live in you

some mornings
like this
it is hard and the only worthwhile enterprise is
to go to bed
so, what is all of this?
why do you get up at five am
the reason is him
and as if He isnt reason enough
the reason is me
we who live alone find the
reasons to live sleeping in
our beds
and in our bibles

i love you
you understand so much when
so often i have been failed
and i love how you gave up asking
stupid questions long ago
i love how you actually pay
attention and i put aside this weariness
that they've been wearing me down with and
i believe,
deep inside that one day
the two of us
will finally meet

and if i show up to the mountain will you be there?
or will i be there
wiil i spend whole days
catching up to myself
face greasy
i go to the icemelt
from the snow tip
i take a sip of your freezing life
go to the pool for baptism
and more than that the
revision that forgives you'
and that will save me

now

and what do you say?
what do you say this morning?
you say nothing
i get up to come to you
but what you have for me is silence
you are asking of me a word
or two words
a word that will create the light
and i say
i believe in you
and i say
i will trust in you
and i say, i will sink into
the six a m dark from where i came
and i will love you

the next time you blow you don't tell me a thing
you just blow the crap out of my head and i say
i have to stop lying
i have to stop crying about the earth as it is
and my lot on it and, to make it far less poetic,
why i can't find a man
and to make it far more honest why all the men
i find are like they are
and why this town is like i is
and why she stands there looking half crazy
and she thinks she'll get disability
and you know she won't
she's just the craziness of the day
and you smile, you say
sure you will
i was so sick of this town i rode three bus routes looking
for the place where it got pretty and then at the edge
of the city i got off and sat at the top of a hill
cut like a grag, like a canyon
and river ran there and blue and silver it said
silence

and on this day, when prayers end
and trumpets blow
i am commanded by the ram's horn to pay
attention to the noiselessness of things
even the gentle thoughtful noise is too much
even the beautiful beauty has too much
glinting
hinting that i should do more than just sit
i should listen to it
but no, listen to this
i can't keep eating yogurt and making
list and i can't get enough done
and the problem with you and your
marriage is though you stare at him
the trade off you made for him
is passing a buck
and wedding rings mean never having to say
you're you
and that's the luck
that's the luck

i don't want to be like this anymore
which is to say
i don't want to be in the place where i can't see you
i don't want to be in the place of anger anymore
he said,
a wise man told me
well he told his congregation
we need to be restless, we need a constant awareness
of the monstrosity of injustice
and so we feel its nailprints now and again
and then
again and again
and what i want is to feel them with joy
and what i want is to never despair
and what i need is to listen