When worldly cares and troubles weigh
Thy sinking spirit down
And all life's sad and sinful woes
Do threaten thee to drown

If yet thy struggling head alone
Remains the waves above
Tilt then thine ear in desperate hope
and mark the mourning dove!

Mark the mourning dove who flies
Beyond earth's binding snows
Mark the mourning dove whose skies
Share space with Heaven's throne
Mark the mourning dove who sighs
For suffering borne below
Mark him, mark him, as he cries
"Thy sorrows are My own!"

a tree is spiritual

in a book

a tree is god

behind each knot

within every bole

hide universal secrets

the shadow of a book tree

is long and significant

it withdraws not

it bends not

and every toadstool touched

turns a wild rose

timely snow lights mystical

upon outstretched limbs

limbs bearing majestic sweetness

in their easy levitation 

and lightsome span

in books

a tree bends

and there is shadow

a tree stoops

and there is fruit

true to see

like thoughts in three

books and trees are meant to be

tree

shouts the oak

what tree

screams the aspen

standing stark in sunlight

naked

shaven

raving 

without honor 

country
kin

wild with touch

cold to see

real in color

russet beards swooping low to brush the 

leaf-cluttered pavement 

mad 

utterly, freakishly mad

not to mention fringe

in their inestimable sobriety
the trees howl
caring nothing at all for books
or fantasies contained therein

on Saturdays

the skillet used to turn

five pieces - exactly five -

from livid scent to sanguine flavor

and we drew runes in the fat

tracing the oily patterns of our future 

with fingers

on the back of blue-rimmed diner plates

while we stacked cups and silverware 

in the sink

for Mom to pardon later

somehow the oil always washed away

scrubbed off, we supposed,

by the efforts of a tireless immortal who 

lived, breathed, and washed dishes on a higher plane of existence

than we ourselves could ever aspire to reach

even seated in a high-chair

but now the fat is gone

and with it all the flavor

rinsed clean by that immortal,

tireless effort

which eventually stymies us all

that housewife rule of nature which dictates where to set the dishes

and sometimes undercooks the future

though it never burns the past.

above our world

clouds sit like skin

clumping into white sheets and flakes

dry and cracked

where the sun has baked them too long

and over the surface of this skin

a cold wind is always rolling

there to be felt

though it cannot be heard

since its motion is not one so much of sound 

as of sight

and a vague stirring of the dark

that dims distant starlight

God's hand is in that wind

for he watches over each of us

big and small

and from time to time

stretches out his heavenly arm

with its long black fingers

to grasp us in His icy palm

shielding us from the harshness of unstable nebulae

which might otherwise dazzle or destroy our fragile condition

though we rarely thank Him here

down below the epidermis

where things are warmly lit 

and the blood of rivers running downhill

gives us joy 

to sit and ponder inmost beauty

without counting the magnitude of galaxies

or gripping smooth cold stones.