thoughts never spoken lie
between the made sheets
pressed, folded and carried
out the door into Autumn's
pointed leaves that float down
silent in unassuming reds
landing in wet stacks that slip
sometimes under shoe soles
with a start, caught balance
    no one there to see
but the sidewalk, counted
with each known crack.

In Autumn's air the sidewalk
path crackles with each step
as the wild path of a singular
lingering bee sluggishly flies
    in Winter air abuzz
around the bend with promises
of ice lake vistas just up ahead
sleek, flat and slick reflections
hearing the sharp, deep split
clear down to the liquid

the moment's buzz clearing the kid
with mittens claps while snow flies
chill to the face and a laugh or start
shocked with cold all bundled up

ii.

fire, held in a ring of stones, smoke
and stars through burnt seen in air
sound, natural in the evergreen wood
a wandering that might be placed

iii.

teas, me's, my little crumpet how deliciously
vexed in sanguine armaments you left such
good notes behind in Easter baskets strewn
in corners of walls like land mines never
meaning what folly happened to spring in

oh, the hints of puzzles and board games
moving speech squashed flat on floors
tingled at the entrance of an exit flourished
with all the gifts sliced from wins

iv.

Excavations needing
    to be filled
with no artifacts
    found on blocks
sun-baked lake beds
    cracked hard clay
a symbol of the Moon
    wedged on a monolith
black as day
    that fell

v.

sing ye yor supper blue coat
the bandage on the noggin
and bayonets the beauty as
the whittlin' round the songs

dustin' off the britches lad
you'll ramble back those trenches
on the mornin' come for better on's
an' whack against the day.

vi.

Skeleton stilts tip-toeing clickety
in the meat rumbled on along
down the street and bludgeoned
cuts of beef tender, thick full juice
rumbled on along the street

vii.

stumbled in the thicket fresh with bells
that held the skull fast as lines move in
and back out to each pine needle zinging
in the ring of tatters with fresh green
bursting in currents of scent lit bright
ice lakes and sands blessed to the feet
where no thing moves yet dreamed

a private wheel that turned within
while wanders on the land, showing
fields with feet and grunting meat
and lines within the skulls and lines
within the ribs unfurled that blew along
the tides where fishes wept the seas
on high that broke against the eyes

that broke against the bows astern
to splash upon the bridge and pulled
the feet back toward the deep where
few but fishes live. In air, salt spray
face and skin remembers all the songs
in waves beneath the sparkled light
that catches through the breeze

great waves beneath the light
that catches on the breeze

viii.

sandwich, knife clinks in jar
chew in the stare of kitchens