Bonfire of the Ancestors
Preliminary Instructions

Take a bag of whitest ashes
To the woods of family trees
Sprinkle ‘round the edges
Do it on your knees 

Return again at night
A candle in your hand
Let the forest whimper
Stories of the land

Come back in the morning
Swing your sharpest axe
Cut down all the trees
Pile them up in stacks 

Drag off all the stumps so
The understory’s clear
The space is now ready
Your fire goes here

Spinning

Spinning
Spinning. Revolving
Revolving in the liquid core of the earth
I’m flying through the fire of the ore
Ore. Either
Ether—taking i out, finding Spirit in life
Life is but a journey to death
Death. Rebirth
Transformation. Transportation. Where to go next?
Next. Get in line 
Line. Circle. Circle. Dance
Dance in balance
Balance each thought against its exact opposite

When I was a child I drew spirals over and over again
Again. Why?
There’s so much to learn and there’s not enough time
Time. I’m 63 and I don’t know what that means
Means—suddenly I feel sad
I must fear dying
We all fear dying

I’m floating
I’m sinking
I’m borne upwards
It’s all the same
Same. I’m smiling
Smiling. What else?
I’m okay
Okay now
Now, if I stay in the Now always
Always, I’ll be okay
Okay, is this true?
True

Heavy

I remember him asking
if he could carry my books home from school
2 nerds meandering down a street

I remember asking him
40 years later, sitting on his lumpy dark couch
“What made you do that?”

I remember his scent
musky, floral, buttery…
But I can’t describe it

I remember him sighing
in hospital hallways
in rooms of emergency, intensive, critical
in beds I’d raise and lower

I remember holding his
eyelids down
until they stayed shut
He was cooling off,
hadn’t been gone more
than 20 minutes,
at home, yeah, in his own bed

I remember a floating feeling
after he answered me,
back on the lumpy dark couch
“Because your books looked heavy.”

Small white clouds
Slowly blow across my sky
“Forget…forgetting…”

 30 Years Old in Amsterdam
(For Bob)

Our
mornings
broke like soft gold
running bright over the plates
rolling ‘round town, creaking
in funny axles, and when we
turned sideways at night
we were in-
visible.

Change

I’m putting my finger
up the ass of America
This is not a sexual procedure.
I wear gloves
I get a whole hand in
I go farther up, up and away,
and now I have my whole head
way up inside the ass of America

Here there is no color,
but the darkness is so blinding bright
it might as well be white
And where is the proof through the night
that we can change?