autumn behind us
a redwing blackbird calls
from the cattails

love growing wild
like clover like laurel
a soul of branches

come here, see
they've all fallen
down scarlet
leaves now
at feet of
carbon black

light caught high in a
silver filament of web
a window to joy

now it is morning
scratching at the door, howling
with left-over dreams

behind the silence
sat a song of mountain times
loving and longing

red maple leaves
falling down the dark boughs
of the old spruce

wind through the bare branches
a leaf rattles
across the parking lot

we dance and we sing
out of those too-tight places
where we cannot live

if
all you knew
was piano and trumpet
imagine
what drums
might sound like
to you
imagine
what they all
might sound like
together

Communion, 1968

I knelt against the pew,
leaning in again to see
Mary, the black hair
falling straight down
the back of her dress,

the faint freckles
scattered under eyes
that, after Mass,
made blue flowers
appear on the chicory
pushing out at the curbs,
dancing around the
telephone poles,
as cars rushed past me
standing in front
of the church.

As still as a statue, she
knelt beside her beautiful
mother, the Body
of Christ dissolving
in our mouths.

mornings are lovely
here there is a sound then a
flight of some fancy

We exist
eyes in heads
bouncing and rolling
like so many beach balls
ping-ponging
in the currents of sight
blowing
through the mind-tunnels
of the night.
   Riding trains
of thought,
we try to possess
the unpossessible.
   In and out of darkness
sparks of hope glimmer
in the secret chamber
that we think
cannot be found
by so-called strangers
who, likewise hoping,
hide diamonds
in transparent mines.

"We" by Bill Buchman in "Suite For Modern Man"