Ode to the Breeze



Carrier of all urges the human voice can utter.
A grace-goodness
so easily disregarded, you flip the pages
of my abandoned book,
cause me to gaze across the lake and consider
the invisible,
then, later, the breath
at my window, you skim my body’s surfaces,
a space that kisses smaller spaces.
Heart-stir I feel within, without,
you are my supplest lover, and my subtlest,
finding your way under my blouse.
Time’s mild marker of motion, I watch you
dry the damp bluebells,
lick the oak’s crenellated fingers, turn
and swirl the nodding grasses.
Both you and the past
are beyond grasping.
Are you one or many? Ageless or as
time-dependent as a seed?
Capering spirit-mold the sculptor envies.
You turn your current over
as if it were a sleeping infant, then scissor
the air for the shiniest light, dice up the plentitude,
blue-hued governor of touch.

Published in Brave Disguises, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press