Space It Turns Out

space it turns out is a brightness
we carry around

swelled halo

from the lip
of this pond to that outcropping
is
[count them off]

posts and beams
of light,
hangars of sound

how to square
a thing that cascades

it’s why we loved
the topo maps

girded in concentrics

a ridge we know
to its limit where
it melts into the surrounding

Where Once

little nameless
flowers
—and lo—
unring me

not even
a stump
where once
a tree

one does not
see    one
feels the logic
of it plain

must be
long-rotten roots
gone to earth
like all
thoughts buried
but like the tree
the poem

implausibly
here

That Eats the Fly

that eats the fly that loves               the rot
of a picnic       what crosses the field in search
of             a crag             a mate             comets
going off behind a mum blue       there’s logic
a periodic             scratch             across the lens
so much overseen       the carcass where it last
leapt         grasses sparse as run-through hair
scalp edging back and white just beginning
to perceive       the dream of whatever interposes
a deus ex                       or thought balloon
but swifter than that                so one cannot
be sure           one has seen it in plain daylight

Shaft of Light

perhaps

stammers the

perhaps
hand

perhaps brow

of swimmer

that is

chevrons

of forearm

and thigh

and a few

bathing
digital moths

late arrived

that could

be fire-colored

  or set

afire

how

they grapple

toward

the present

understanding
or threaten

to disperse

Old Marble Vast

do not touch down
my medusa
jellyfish     like
something I have
known once
grown deadly

I was always
at the edge
of frame     witness
rather than subject
and you made
the blue distance
first bearable
then intelligible
an interstitial
balm

too near
to you and I
lose focus
too close
and I forfeit
my skin

It Walked Through the Clearing

hardwood sap hung in the air
X came in when the weather
turned    beestung     sawdust
caught in lashes forearm hair

this thing X was making
was difficult to see     explain
impossible to nail down
it had to have a clear view

it had to be level true
and watertight     a dowser
with a wishbone stick found
a source     other times winged

things peered down nervous
and hungry    X was on its own