old jazz record—
a scratch
           improvises

As geese arc, the fog 
closing behind them … 
the poem’s false start

a forest
with an exit sign
my “roughing it”

in the brass door knob
a distorted face
I grip and twist

the anger from work
In my son’s birthday balloons

driving
past the neighbor's corn
to buy the butter

A wolf;
one firefly clinging to it

illuminating
the silence between us . . .
firefly

children squealing
slowly the oldest gorilla
focuses elsewhere

Trying to forget him
stabbing
the potatoes.

This Alamo
too small a place
for dying

The dream entangled 
in convolvulus is still
dreaming without end

cold night
the breath of children
being dragons

August cicadas
could I carry an ocean
in one suitcase

finches leaving
and with them
daylight savings' time

snow covered village...
I follow a stranger's footprints
over the bridge

behind the curtain
the opera singer carries her roses
through a dark forest

I wade in the brook
that he loved to paint-
pull of the current

words
still pink
close to the bone

eating the oyster
i set its shell adrift
a trip to Oki Isle

town barber pole
stops turning:
autumn nightfall

silent night
the singing hands
of the deaf child

free of the sulky
the black horse
continues to trot

still wanting
to fly  these feathers
of the dead owl

While a monk prays to Buddha aloud
an old woman has a hearty laugh
within her vagina

dancers of
invisible fish are
you awake

I sing too
The departing body
With autumn leaves

Water flows
from the cutting board
to the time of a young girl

out of the mud of another eon something firm

A string sings-
the tide turns jet-black
and glitters

Our feelings
have no right answer
the blue sky

Morning beach   a flash of fish   catching the light

A rusty halo hangs
On an unlit taper
Out of order

I wait for you full
like an empty bowl
radiant with dreams

how many ways
to become a butterfly-
a mime on the stage

in the deepest part
of the kaleidoscope:
the Emperor's room

Flying nowhere
blackbirds appearing out of
the painter's brush

Lower half of my body
surrounded by ocean fish-
Saturday

I philosophize
on hearing the cries
of a meteorite

building a stone fence   a scattering of feathers

the long a of gray
the long a of rain
the shortest day

March in the garden-
My hostess shows me brown sticks
and speaks of flowers

Sunflowers--
dad in uniform
last photo

Sandpipers
running along the glassy beach
on top of themselves

new in town
the scent
of unknown flowers

Among the gravestones
with names worn away
children play hide 'n seek

meteor shower...
a gentle wave
wets our sandals

A bird on the mast of the ship
sings of cherry blossoms.
The seaman begins to bloom.

The sweet smell
from an unknown tree
repulses the metropolis

first light
dark limbs of the walnut
holding their snow

Is that light that goes off
an empire
or is it a glowworm?

Over the sand
Scriptures of the birds.
Memories of the wind

As it thunders
the ears of the forest
become leaves

Why threaten a singing man with the stones of existence

skiers!
standing
on the wind

Your shadow
on the page
the poem

the cat's cradle
the Eiffel Tower too
into winter

Knowing one among miles of white crosses

my hands at rest
in dishwater...
first hummingbird

almost dusk-
the raspberry stalk bends
with a purple finch

For me too
the song of the thrush
that landed somewhere else

forest pool-
faun at the brink
of a bottomless sky

a red-tail's echo...
the reservoir the color
of surrounding pines

stern wind
the branch an osprey 
adds to its nest

An evening seashell
with its pearly glow
lights the fisherman's way home

dense snowfall
the world's
white shadow

An angel of stone has wings of stone...such solitude

Each time
I try to smile I also
show my teeth

Sleeping
With a fire-colored mane
A silver horse

his life, and then
her life gone--
distant fireworks

All shadows
in praying posture-
iris flowers

a deserted backyard
after the rain a duck
in a bomb crater

on the other side
of the battlefield someone
playing a harmonica

Last night lightning
this morning
the white iris

On the bank
I wait
for the river to pass

sound of a moth
trapped in a paper lantern-
summer rain

Heaven and Earth
knotted with a jerk-
Nachi Falls

under cherry blossoms
female convicts in line
walk to their bath

snowy Sunday
the light is beautiful
his last words

Returning in time
with an umbrella wide open, 
and wet shoes

Drizzle, patient rain
over my skin-
your tongue

words
spent fuel
gum beneath counters

dawn a can of spilled paint

after her death
watching the rain
meeting the river

Back at their day jobs
The Chinese Astronauts
Remember weightlessness

a purple tree-
when did I stop
being young?

I am the age
my father never was
spring planting

coyote chorus
elevator to the roof
of forgotten woods

Osiris
reconstructed
buttercups

Shredding straw
and the bluebird's song--
Spring wind

the voice
of autumn pine woods
mourning doves

walking with the river
the water does my thinking

In Shanghai
in every autumn light
a dream

a post
automobile
part of
town
a song
from the
underworld

distant
snow-capped mountains
I write a letter

alone
walking the house all night-
moon festival

looking into your eyes
I forget that people die

Drinking
a bowl of green tea
I stopped the war

sudden chill
an empty bird feeder
outside the nursing home

parting her pink robe-
daybreak

whales
gather at dusk
to sing

twice now
at the abandoned house
Jehovah Witness

My long life--
Never having found
A four-leaf clover

full
moon
in
the
bum's
glass 
eye

parting her
lips
to the dawn

1 a.m.
the light in an office
on the 33rd floor

ocean breeze
the names of slave ships
that no longer sail

moonlit snowflakes
floating into the cage
of the silver fox

another cross
along this stretch of road
winter fields

rain all day
I carve the darkness
from a peach

mayflies-
writing their passion
on the stream

bee on a black key-
I halt the metronome

winter solstice
I delete an e-mail
from Jesus

border town-
all the houses
with a dog to beware of

over the parade-
a window no one
looks out of

so suddenly winter
baby teeth at the bottom
of the button jar

deep winter
the sun is only 
another star

tornado warning---
we learn
what really matters

another summer
the butterfly, still safe
under his steel pin

Holding the water,
   held by it-
      the dark mud

lengthening shadow...
above her eggs the hen's heart
beats against my arm

Indian summer
a spent salmon
washes ashore

salmon run
does the river too
have memory

distant singing-
the winter stars
almost touch

harvesting
this same field...
the sickle moon

bonsai master-
all the years
cut away

Listening to snowfall...
the strange things
I can't explain about myself

spring bloom-
a young girl singing
beyond her range

autumn light-
the thin thread
of honey

retreating glacier--
how long since we've heard
the black wolf's song

I wonder what stones see
And hop
In the shimmering heat waves

blue apple
it gives birth
to a mirror

Colors
of gardens long dead
travel toward the stars

From the starting gate,
the charge of young horses-
another spring

she rocks her feet like a second heart deep night

iron stains of roadkill the godless month

we cannot fight them
in their languages
full of bones

as though the stars drill holes through darkness December

in the store window
a row of dolls
staring back

even the snail
wanders in the galaxy-
evening rain

The orchid
a short poem
in spring mist

Wild ducks
solid as carvings
piercing wind

From the tap
Water rushes out
A-Bomb Day

Thundering skies
wild white horses
reaching the beach

Autumn colors--
I had a flaming heart
if only once

Grandfather
who built his dead sons
a grave each

Five little roses
our youngest son; he had
just started soccer

end of summer...
the cosmos
in a handful of seeds

my ailing father,
listens to the crickets;
last day of August

spring thaw-
the stream parts to embrace
the stone

butterflies...
a child's name
set in stone

not mind
nor heart, nor flesh am I...
sun on the water

unknown soldier
each year
bears a poppy

spring fever-
a housefly settles
as kireji

Stepping off
Mount Sumeru
I enter the ghetto

old conglomerate
filled with bright pebbles
this sadness

Home from surgery-
what kindness,
a flower is

if dry, cracked soil
could let out a sigh
first snowfall

burl bark grown into a wound a word

return to the garden
my Clausewitz copy
covered in blossoms

early dark
Christmas lights
colour the rain

killing fields:
the wind carries a butterfly
bone over bone

winter-golden grass
bent to the wind
to the ways of deer

just you
under the magnolia
in bloom

the persistence
of his image
peonies

the warmth of the sun
on his hand
in my hand

lighting butter lamps
your death anniversary
what else can I do?

first light
I rise
the way mountains are made

spring moon
from the tarot deck
the fool

news of a grandchild
I touch a furled bud
in spring rain

dense fog
we built up a world
of words

pond ice remembering swans

cello suite-
taking leave
of the world

why not, snail
take the load sometimes
off your back?

\"Got married\"
From a girl I taught-
Plums ripen

after all these years
ankle deep
in the other ocean

blank calendar
not only a new year
a new life

This pillar has a hole
it's a secret worth seeing
Persephone

slowly 
the sunset spreads
endless prairie

Utterly still
The bluejay cries
Utterly what I am

hitchhiking
an orange moth fills
the emptiness of Texas

pregnant again...
the fluttering of moths
against the window

by the night light
tiny spider's tiny web
leaving it there

sunrise last of the cathedral honey

give me an icicle
containing the stars
of the deep north

Saw a Russian film-
so fat
a winter carrot

Sioux Haiku
On a relief map
mountains remind my fingers
Where Crazy Horse tried

This scar?
Glass bangles
After wild dancing

orderly fields
of an Amish farm
the things I can't tell her

on screens overlooking
the Shinjuku station concourse
seals slithering across a floor

   a pig's memory
 it leads to colours
   of hesitant hills

cold rain-
my application
to become a crab

three times I've said
"your husband..."
now we can just talk

dust
and balloons
heal the battlefield

over the parade-
a window no one
looks out of

deep in the sea
i hold the world
with eight arms

the silence grows
teeth- a tree
with cracked windows

in a tent in the rain i become a climate

forgotten for today by the one true god autumn mosquito

a drowning man
pulled into violet worlds
grasping hydrangea

in the dim light
I am an island...picking at
a pomegranate

after rain
  picking tomatoes
    my medicine

clay on the wheel I confess my faith

art deco knob it was here i was made 

the coming storm —
a cricket has hold
of the Chevrolet

mask thrown aside
he puts on another
and another

attention seeking the therapist’s cat

the grimace
of the roadside cat
its last

Spring rain
I’ve upset
the little stack of coins

night birth a lamb shakes fluids into the sleet

Bad day ahead
I spread honey
to the far corners of my toast

postcard from egypt
    the loop
        in her g’s

turning back the clocks-
his job
still

pruning roses—
not earning money
not spending it

pulling gate nails
driven by
my young father

coming to rest
the tossed pebble
takes a shadow

storm clouds
the valley darkens
farm by farm

blue sky
the carpenter makes
a perfect cut

Indian summer 
a spent salmon 
washes ashore

pointing
my way home
the starfish

out of a nightmare-
all these bones
in my chest

old passport
the tug
of my father's smile

small town pantomime
the audience laughs
in the wrong place

behind her
up
the hayloft,
I watch
my step

fireflies
my neighbor
has more

Wall Street gym—
junior execs
run in place

slant light...
to each leaf
its own fall

island in the mist
a lone figure waits
on the ferry pier

a new word needed
for each of the waves
that come in

fading blue sky-
insect voices
find their rhythm

the year passes...
longing for cranes
to color the sky

alone...
this lake
this dragonfly

a loon calls   mosquitoes from nowhere

spring at last
letting the stallion out
into the pasture

The sea inside   Dakota wheat fields

Dead-end road--
shadows of skinny cows
through old barbed wire

I take the road
with speed bumps...
autumn leaves

twilight
the snow covered hills
stretch into night

spring snow...
comforting words
to myself

the funeral-
I read the verse
you read to me

parsley
so green I hear it
spring rain

kite flying day
colored squares patch
the holes in the sky

fossil fern-
all that I've tried
to hold on to

night
a swan's wing
everything

like
nothing
ever
happened
dandelion

pastel-colored day
a password
for the budding willow

the hollow sound
of a playground ball
    lingering light

almost dawn in the owl's hoot what I know of solitude

breathing on her own-
    furrowed fields
the color of waiting

only this
was black and white...
mother's cameo

blue sky
maybe I don't need
to be right

fireflies
all the children
grown

our tour ends in rain
         - - -
a fortress our ancestors
believed in

even coffin nails
shine
April dusk

another friend dead
a crow flying toward
the after-sunset

dry leaves in spring
a sense
of urgency

red threads
in the sparrow's nest
frayed prayer flags

asylum
the darkness
of mother's hair

chill wind
a dime lands softly
in his velvet case

snorkeling
a chasm as deep
as fear

footpath through
the valley snow
secrets I knew as a child

a heron's squawk
the islands too small
for names

my apology...
a finch barely breaking
the snow's crust

the cherry blossoms arrive without a god

summer chill
a man guts sculpin
at the fish mart

summer breeze
cattle graze the floor
of an ancient sea

evening down a road where a car has gone

Of haze comes flowers sky he walking

blue hair in the wind
we pretend is living now
people on welfare

in an old bed a devil grabbed me by my black hair

The quiet sound of a falling mosquito resounds in my body

Having gotten used to the depths of war I love a dog

Yellow flower
shaking wind
allThisinOne w a v e

on the floor
actors and masks-
on the table a rose

There's really no hope
those limpid tears will cool
into blades of steel?

a museum of moons shadows on the stone

starfish
in a tide pool
soliloquy

fading day-
in the blue cry of peacocks
the light of unformed things

all night rain-
the tattoo
of dreams

Butterfly
on the flower.
Another flower

childhood home
I park in the shade
of my cherry stone

more than all you know the crow

The Invisible Circus
Forbids the clowns
To remove their make-up

A thin moon-
something fluttering
is my body

in her eyes ant,ant,ant,ant,ant

A small window filled with seasounds it lightens