Bypassing the sullen lines and footsore customers,

Spending only my time, discounting all I see.

Instead I look for you among the pressing crowds,

But they know nothing of you, turning away,

Carrying their brightly packaged burdens.

There is no angel among the vending stalls and signage.

Where are you, my fugitive? Without you

There is nothing but the getting and the spending

Of things that have a price.

Why else have I stalked the leased arcades

Searching the kiosks and the cash machines?

Where are you, my errant soul and innermost companion?

Are you outside amid the potted palm trees,

Bumming a cigarette or joking with the guards,

Or are you wandering the parking lot

Lost among the rows of Subarus and Audis?

Or is that you I catch a sudden glimpse of

Smiling behind the greasy window of the bus

As it disappears into the evening rush?

SEA PEBBLES: AN ELEGY

My love, how time makes hardness shine.

They come in every color, pure or mixed,

gray-green of basalt, blood-soaked jasper, quartz,

granite and feldspar, even bits of glass,

smoothed by the patient jeweller of the tides.

Volcano-born, earthquake-quarried,

shaven by glaciers, wind-carved, heat-cracked,

stratified, speckled, bright in the wet surf—

no two alike, all torn from the dry land

tossed up in millions on this empty shore.

How small death seems among the rocks. It drifts

light as a splintered bone the tide uncovers.

It glints among the shattered oyster shells,

gutted by gulls, bleached by salt and sun—

the broken crockery of living things.

Cormorants glide across the quiet bay.

A falcon watches from the ridge, indifferent

to the burdens I have carried here.

No point in walking farther, so I sit,

hollow as driftwood, dead as any stone.

VULTURES MATING

On the branch of a large dead tree

a vulture sits, stinking of carrion.

She is ripe with the perfume of her fertility.

Half a dozen males circle above her,

slowly gliding on the thermals.

One by one, the huge birds settle

stiffly beside her on the limb,

stretching their wings, inflating their chests,

holding their red scabrous heads erect.

Their nostrils dilate with desire.

The ritual goes on for hours.

These bald scavengers pay court politely—

like overdressed princes in an old romance—

circling, stretching, yearning,

waiting for her to choose.

The stink and splendor of fertility

arouses the world. The rotting log

flowers with green moss. The fallen chestnut

splits and drives its root into the soil.

The golden air pours down its pollen.

Desire brings all things back to earth,

charging them to circle, stretch, and preen—

the buzzard or the princess, the scorpion, the rose—

each damp and fecund bud yearning to burst,

to burn, to blossom, to begin.

PROGRESS REPORT

It’s time to admit I’m irresponsible.

I lack ambition. I get nothing done.

I spend the morning walking up the fire road.

I know every tree along the ridge.