August poem

Sharing this poem which will appear in my forthcoming collection Gods of Water and Air. I'm not entirely sure from which publisher it will be forthcoming, as I've had some publishing mishaps you can read about earlier in this blog. But it will forthcome. Here's a poem that originally appeared in Pilgrimage:

Anvil of Light

In a forgotten valley studded with runic oaks,

            at mid-August, on an anvil of light

            my breath and two swallows rise and fall.

Nearing to the remembered place,

            a wail of distant insects

            riffles the distance like notes in a weird scale.

            Solitude comes to an intersection

And a figure-eight of melody

            startles up out of the grass.

Involuntary, this godward thing called praise.

            It lights on a weed tip

            and its wings radiate out.

The wind’s tides roll through dry weeds, on and on,

            a Greek chorus of Why, Why, Why.

A mockingbird's tail flicks.

            The silent ring of the lupine bells.

Still, I don’t know where I am

            until I watch a pencil-tick

crawl up a poppy's thigh

and black-spotted wings sprout

from my back. I flap away

            to a dry height from which I can see

            the question’s shape. Here

            is really nowhere. Are you nowhere too?

How can anyone ever trap matter in words?

Or ever make ideas as apple-fine as this air?