July
we lay down in the graveyard
hinged there
I will not bring you there,
lovely moss growing in the letters,
then the green in the moss and trees went up and joined the gray in the sky
then the sky came down by breaths into my skin
and sipped me
Sleep Bowl
the warm light bowl
of your voice
sounds across the surface of my sleep
bit by bit coming to it
white wings brushing
against the skydrum
fish arrow to the surface of the water
drawn by the distant distant sun
you were named in me thirteen years ago
by my mother rust-clad at the promise river
sleep little sweat-lodge
spirit house is built to worship the ancestors
the sky is deep
your voice
your voice
my name
more wind�
Passage
we came to the next part�the sickness feast
the accretion of coats with your rough cheek next to mine
trying on the oppressor coat, the old coat, the next coat�
on the other side of the wall a man who lives alone holds conversations in his sleep�
Cauldron-eyes, you�re striking, made ferrous, and you�re uncurdling me
all the points of passage from one body to another are points of danger
will the body begin to shiver apart
what will be left
the road is lightless, sightless, roadless
the winter becomes more and more blue
what will be left of it
yes the fear of falling, of coming apart
but also delight
as the �what-I-believe-in� hits the surface of the water
from a great height
now no passengers, no boat, no anchor�
only the I-craft, swimming through the crazy water,
breathing it, being burned by it, thinking to walk on it,
also being encircled
also being dispersed�
you�ve forgotten the other life
in which he threw your books into the fountain
and the ink, unrecognizable at last
reached for you with dissipating lust
now you know the sun�Shams�in the sky
is not the one you orbit around
nor the one who went out the back door into night
and never returned
that day in the marketplace street you, estranged and weeping,
realized the true Shams was within�stopped looking�and said:
I am Shams-u-Tabriz�estranged in the street
and aren�t you also that street?
went up the mountain at the break of dawn and still met
people coming down from an earlier pilgrimage
aren�t you that mountain?
in the dawn at the tomb of not-Shams
you prayed and prayed to be not-found
who is the sun inside you?
who was it who left me then? are you that?
and the prayer condensed against the familiar sounds
his chair scraping against the floor
and the pure dread you felt as he walked out the back door�
knowing he would never return, that you would go mad,
spend years looking for him�that you would never find him�
so what do you say about it?
somewhere in the world now
at every moment
Shams is dropping behind the mountains
into the night�
at the fountain in the village square
the books are still weeping, asking to be rescued�
even the mountains are bending down
to try to help them�
dear I do not mourn:
you Are
