short summer night -
        the overhead reading light
grows dim
 
 
 
 

my enormous shadow -
          the summer land crabs
scamper like mad
 
 
 
 

the whole town turns out
        for the festival -
lone moon in the night sky
 
 
 
 

Once you're dead and gone,
it's over for good.
Whoever went to find out why,
and came back to tell?
 
 
 
 

He tried and tried to roll
his stone to the top of the hill.
It kept rolling back down
when he turned his attention away.
He didn't know the way off Stone Mountain.
 
 
 
 

Nightfall.  Lightning on the horizon.
Rain rolls across the distant mountains.
The thunder draws nearer.  Lover, you had
better come soon if you don't want to get wet.
 
 
 
 

The relentless heat -
         even the summer stones
begin to breathe
 
 
 
 

Among the duckweed:
        here and there,
a frog's face
 
 
 
 

Two of a kind
you and I
like the fruit
around its seed
 
 
 
 

No one calls me up -
reading outside tonight, the mosquitos
won't let me be
 
 
 
 

There's always another door to death
Always another hope that
opens the heart and closes that door
 
 
 
 

Suddenly drunk with love -
you smash all the idols of my heart,
raze to dust the inner temple.
Now I know - before your presence,
all my gods were mortal.
 
 
 
 

Going round and round in my head
the planets
you've set in motion
 
 
 
 

You send me out whirling around myself
moth that I am
circling around the flame of our love
 
 
 
 

I start and wake from my sleep.
My room is quiet and still
with the light of the full moon.
The voice that woke me
did not come from this world.
 
 
 
 

I've gone to bed, discouraged,
But the late night moon
waits up until dawn for you
 
 
 
 

They say the magic poem,
but can't get at its meaning.
While the others die arguing about it,
I whistle a gay tune.
 
 
 
 

Passion that burns.
Fire in every heart.
No one gets out of the inferno
unscathed.
 
 
 
 

Breath of life, body of creature -
when the wind blows into that
scarecrow, it dances
 
 
 
 

I feel somehow distant
from this life I call my own -
this curious object I hold up to the light
as if it were a precious gem
 
 
 
 

I thought I'd forgotten all about you, and then you
                   appear in a dream -
If only I could see you like that in broad daylight!
 
 
 
 

How I long for the one who said he would come
           and hasn't - I won't wait here
much longer, though my heart says, "Wait!"
 
 
 
 

I remember the summer shade
       of a gigantic tree
I stood under weeks ago
 
 
 
 

Torrential summer rain -
        the girl sits at the window,
painting her nails
 
 
 
 

you have the keys to all the doors of my heart
take care you don't lose even one
 
 
 

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to the collection All Fall Down