i forgive myself for choosing to be a predator.
for sharp teeth and an active imagination.
for killing my meat, in an age when
killing is a luxury, not a need.
i forgive myself for raising
birds to be slaughtered,
and for doing the slaughtering.
for the gasping opened beak
and warm blood running down my hands,
for indifference to the final shudder,
the hard wing-flapping death,
the open eye i do not meet
until it glazes.
for preying upon other life,
and planning it.
for being a part of the cycle,
and doing the dirty work,
and owning up to it,
and teaching others.
and, when the work is done,
the blood washed off,
the last eye closed,
for delighting in the savor
of the meat.
it smells like rain
or an irrigated field
and tonight i have both
and new love besides.
i am always turning away from you.
seven years of arrival and departure
without continuance at the center,
the motion away built into the motion toward.
brightest love of my life
from whom i must turn,
whose desires i could not satisfy,
after enough time, my own not matching yours.
what can i do with a love
not harnessed to the same plow?
the brightness of the sky
overwhelms my eyes.
i’m in love with the hydrologic cycle,
and i can take apart a live chicken,
dance half-naked in moonlight and firelight,
build a wall, plant a tree,
recognize the difference between a covenant with you
and a contract with the state,
grow a ten foot wall of lush green cornstalks,
and i almost always laugh at your jokes.
my hands are hardening as my heart softens.
i try to hurry the process and things tear.
blisters rise and sting. i bruise
too easily, fall too fast.
the massive cottonwoods humble and reduce me.
i get small, laying on the patio,
hurtling through space beneath a sky
massed with leaves flecked with stars.
the planet rockets toward winter.
isolated gold flakes down from the leafy heavens.
my toes get cold, and all the bugs diversify.
every evening’s a concert of insects.
the spider sets up shop across the path,
where she’ll get the best traffic.
she floats midair, legs spread wide,
golden, black and glistening.
everyone admires her, and keeps their distance.
you can’t tell by looking
if she relishes the avoidance,
or aches from it.
to say, you are meeting my needs
is also to say, i have needs and today, you fill them.
it is also to say, i need you.
dangerous ground, the breakwater, the undertow
land pulling out to sea.
i need you also means,
i need for you to need me.
and if not, then what?
from breakwater to heartbreak,
casual catastrophe.
it happens every day.
as does love. as does need.
any easier way to say it
is only a way around it,
edges evading the center.
the wave falls regardless.
the heart falls, breaks, heals.
or it doesn’t. the causal catastrophe,
fear’s root.
spring runs down from the mountains
in leaping rivulets of muddy water,
the red earth dark as blood with running.
flowers fountain down behind the springing water,
tumbling in wild falls of color.
at the base of the mountains,
collecting in pools and leafy groves,
summer gathers and begins her long silken ascent,
fingering each budding flower,
each leaf of every tree, on her way up the slopes.
along the way, she’ll slip a slender finger inside you
and rub your spirit till you’re wide awake with yearning
wet as rain, wet as springtime snowmelt
pouring down from the blossoming mountains.