CHRISTMAS ON PIEDMONT AVENUE

A boy on a pogo stick.

A busker on a corner.

Russet and gold

between them.

Fallen leaves, dancing 

in December light.

AVOWAL

Dear reader, without you,

this poem is a lonely thing,

like a consonant without its vowel.

You are the scribe

who adds the missing intonation,

accents the scripture,

so it can be a cantillation,

so it can sing and be sung.

THE CANVAS

Give it up: 

your name,

all the awkwardness 

of being,

what you know to be true.

Become torrent, butterfly or dream,

something you’re not

and never have been.

Unhinge from 

the persisting paradigms

of the mind

and enter the space

between the polarities 

that partition and confound,

where everything is actually

woven. From here

you will ride the spiral

like a wind or a wave

and find the anthem

that will free you,

the canvas

that will paint you.

MAKING SYRUP

The courtesan

will make thunder

by pulling a dictionary

off a shelf.

She will make sap

by looking up the word astonish.

She will.

Her lips will be the spile

and the knight will be the maple.

The season

will make the syrup.