Home

There has been an idea

of you in America, a valley

you walk in

unnamed

after five years, or zero years

we are dusty

in our different manners

the low sunlight

yellow, golden

earthy

but not people any more

only space

And I recognize like my own child

the way you come in

grab me from behind (though I don’t know

your body)

rough or gentle

You must have loved me all this time

under that cowboy hat

in the eucalyptus forest, near a village

of figs and old people with damaged dogs

learning Portuguese outside the ashram,

a tool in mighty hands

you are inside

perhaps

it is your destiny

to blow the Shofar like a real

Bible, a host for

lost souls

found in emptiness

and I’m trekking through deserts and Canada

wearing something away

panning for gold

in webs of trees and sluicing

ice water, scanning the sky

for eagles

as though they could be

the North star

bearing the only message

that has ever mattered

We sat forever

in the Christ Chapel,

the young guest from Jamaica

sang hymns, played trumpet jazz

eyes closed from joy

and there you were

chin in hand

across the rocks

placed by someone

with infinite precision

Home

Now it’s full moon again and

I left before you burst in

wearing white

without the hat,

passed you as I was leaving

on the dust hill

wearing a huge beard

storyless and

Free