Olympic National Park / Mount Rainier (July 2012)

his wings are folded on your nest of boulders

building gardens in the fire of god’s vacuity

the dark woods, singing with all my skin and bone

I would follow your soul as it leads

then like a poison he drank the fondness of the years.

honey dripping down the bear’s face

until its magic burns the wavering sea

we come now to the space which is boy-shaped.

searching for the hand that planted them

touched like water burning bare skin.

spell-bound in the small circle of his own light

it is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time