On my 35th birthday

 1

As when the granary

Storing up the accumulated seasonal fare

The dream of goats and locusts swarm

My silo doors,

I am unyielding in the rust and mothy

Doorknob to my soul’s cavity

Turns and turns to come in.

The dust sits on the mirror

In the month of my mouth’s first breath,

The crab nebula and starry reflection

In my mirror’s eyes remain blue

And in the sky even at midnight

I can still call the spirits of ancestors

That form my most intimate friends.

There is a constant leap of faith in that.

With each leap the circle widens

In the pool that is always splashing.

2.

It is the circle that flows out of the granary

Pushing outward and away

The unremembered insect facts

That danced on the lily days

And feasted on the dew.

Once begun it cannot resist giving

Into the next moment and the next, until

All my memory is swimming further and ending

Here, looking at the first mouth,

Still hungry for its first breath and again.

3.

The center holds still

In the quiet mind

Of an imaginary frog

On a lily pond that paused

While I pursue the taste of longing.

The crab nebula spins out

And its greater wake taking me.