Love on Earth

artistic constraint within abundance

To Ernie

received in a dream

January 2000

For Tami

a housewarming gift

February 2000

Spirit of East

I have seen you

Rising out of the sun

Each morning

Borne on the waves

I have touched you

When the fragrant mist

Was on the leaves

Land of my spirit father

Have you forsaken me?

Long before this burden was placed

It was lifted

By the gentle breeze of oceans

By the cool calm hand of time

By every day that sent spirit toward eternity

Land of my father

Shifting along the half-flown turn of tide

Within the wild mist still falling

  Longer

  Fallen

  Done

Jocasta

Has even the earth born of trauma

Searched her pain for truth

And reaching thus found it?

Calling to her children

Echoing the dark forces

And canceled by any hope of dreams

You who have seen light in life

And given it into the hands of our father

And scooped up muck and dung

And made it my home

I can’t reconcile this freedom

And searching found

Claim warriors, yes, but claim them

With a song

The endless orange of the dawn

And a new fight now

If endless war be done

But purple now, reflecting through the haze

All shimmering

Made perfect

In gracious breeze

In calm tomorrow

And this is you

Stretching

If an eagle

Lifting toward the fog

Then gone

to find you and never die

i would take the framework of a house

and this revealing strip it thus

down to its berry-knotted bones

and cast it here

and claw my way to freedom

the ribs, the rigging against blue sky

the still and clear of morning

on days

standing on mulch

that sticks in children’s sneakers

summer found you free then

and found the face of one who

wiped sad tears from yours

turn there now, though it has been

too long unillumed

only a candle unshowing by day

lighting at night the way

lift it thus, a torch, and hold it

offered high

to those who view between/beyond the stars

a saint’s-eye view, no?

the dancers down below

dancing their circles in light

while challenging outside night

and more than night

See

They are sent to sea

And they are meant, cast there,

To get trashed

Bobbing thus

Along cold night

If you turn from them they will come

Always

Close down the heat of the day

Spread wings against the warm

Uprising draft

And rise

The key to the ocean

Is in its tides

Its shifting sands

Vibratory language

I shall remain certain

In this song

But something beyond joy

And more plain

Tree

I have taken a leaf from the page

From the tree of passion

And filled it with oozing goo

The fingers of its branches extending spread

Sunlight reaching through each

I was too busy painting

To hear the tern’s cry unnoticed

In its highest branch

Breaking the gathering speed toward falls

Barrel cracked, an egg on the rocks

From which flew eagles

Anew

Tiny

     Dabbed

  Things

A lot must go right

soundsong

treasure bound

and treasure left unfound

a chest kicked open

reveals

cornice crave

in these etchings revealed

complexity

a new horizon’s time

in my light

in everlasting sight

the peace I sought

had sought me all along

now thunder –

  now rhythm

  come crashing down

because there is

  always more

twisted sight

echo in the night

my fire

burns in this desire

holding truth

an everlasting ruth

lays claim

to all that is my name

  MTZ

  1/2000