build a new fire at midnight

there in the gray change of spent yesterdays,
a new vocabulary waits to be spoken
where
the red fox paired in spring, visits
a solitary man, clothed in smoke and trees
and dream for him in pictograph, the wilderness, and
the full palm of his
hand to reach out
and pencil electric sticks in to being
to circuit the mind with embers and ashes
laid out in twigs and leaves, a cartography of
branches, matching the forest that meets us
at the edge of silence and meaning.

February apropos the firsts of Spring

the dead haunt me
in the same way the living haunt me
they peer behind words, behind
products, they fill shelves
at the dingy florescence of Kmart
they spread salt and speak kindly
about me- when I am not present
they love and love, courageously
my Aunt explains the mysteries
of day old bread and the microwave,
memories fill as solid as a blue crayon
drawing a line around me of not
quite sadness, but a stillness-
life quiescent in melancholy.