I am running. It is the end of winter, and I am running through crowds along wet city streets, feeling small, the noise of others in my head. Things that are dead are preparing against all will to come alive. Including me. I am running and see part of myself in some ice melting. There I am, by turns troubled and free, breathing heavy, like a hungry deer. Suddenly, I’m distracted by a sliver of wind rattling through cars and bodies along the glass of some store. I’m stopped by my reflection. It makes me look at myself, look through myself. I feel naked despite my gear. Feel naked despite my mind. Naked despite my strife in the world. I see myself and, for the first time, I’m not a little boy peering out of a big man’s body. For the moment, I am the bird and the cage is open. Cars honk, people pass, salesmen sell. The wind rattles. For the moment, I am staring at my Self, complete with no gaps between my soul and my life. For the moment, the cage has turned into my life, and spirit is the underside of skin, experience, the skin of spirit. The marketplace is buzzing. The deep air moves in and out. It is the same air. Inside, the air turns to feeling; outside, the air turns to thought. On my lips it is moist, an eternal condensation. I lick my lips and smile . . .

It is a mysterious and strenuous practice: to walk the city like a desert, to bleed the dark cloud that builds within us, to ex-press what is de-pressed, to let the light in. Despite all our blinking, the most crucial challenge of being human is to sing the cage into a nest.

Entering Our Tenth Year

ENTERING OUR TENTH YEAR

(For Susan)

When I say I love you, I mean that,

being near you, something opens in me

and I become a shore and not a bottle.

When I say I am lost, I mean that

the few maps I’ve found or made up

have brought me to the edge of the unknown.

When I say I need you, I mean that

in the way that plants need sun or earth.

When I say I am alone, I mean this

in the way that a hawk is alone in its sky.

When I can’t speak at all, I don’t mean

anything. It’s just that I’ve unstitched

the words and have slipped into the

silence they contain. And there,

I find you.

Coming of Age

COMING OF AGE

The bent trees told him

that the years will humble

and this is not to be feared.

The hummingbird sucking

nectar while working so hard

to stay aloft told him that effort

and grace are two sides of the

same moment and this is not

to be feared.

The sea wearing the cliff and