Postcard 138

Thank you for the sweet oil of your fingers - anointing grace

Thank you for the gentle bite of your eyes - communion

And the quiet drinking in. The quiet drinking in

Thank your for the wiggle and squirm of conscience 

Is it ok is it ok - penance, reconciliation

Thank you for the held breath, 

The slight flow of blood and sweet chemicals - blessed blessed baptism

Thank you for closing warm hands, closing soft eyes

Closing sighing sighing mouth - initiate

Thank you for learning these words

For recalling me to yourself when I put them down - ordination

Thank you for the warmth of chaos put to order, of energy gathered and held

Of substance made relational, of warm bodied being holding true

Thank you for moving desperate through time to me in wild relation - wedlock

Thank you for holding this note, reading it in consideration, remembering me fondly

For finding meaning, for trying it though us, for being a being that can

Thank you for setting it down, for going on and away,

For packing up, for forgetting. A little entropy, a little death.

Postcard 137

Doesn't it always come down to trees, to whom we are a quick irrelevance?
Fitting, fitting.    With my words I am trying a silence.
That is a quick irrelevance, but it proceeds.
With my words I am trying to name a silence.
A useless Adam.
Name the thing of tree.
Name the sky scratch vanishing.
Name the water wick defying gravity.
Oh dare name the strength of sway.
Name roots subliminal and name their speech unseen:
communing without glottal tongue what is, what has been, what will be.
Oh breathing being Adam, it always comes to breathing being of tree.
Be a silent breathing being. Speak with grounded toes.
Correlate irreverently. Humility of forest for the trees. 
Silence still the word proceeds. Silence and still the word itself.
Un-name the thing.
Un-name the rustle of the leaves.
Un-name the hungry sunward lean.
Un-name the self and finally
let there be no name said or heard for the great relief,
the bow-spring return, the twang and whoosh, that final breath of final fallen tree.
To dumb still Adam, alone before mute glory, it always come down to trees

Postcard 130

Walking the beach on a day of many grays, my wife and I came to a mermaid tangled in the sand. She was red as a selkie and spoke only in murmurs and sighs, that we knew. We freed her with ease and took her out to the surf where we were equals. She showed us many new and strange pleasures from the depths. We were, all three, careless in the low waves.

So illuminated and rapt of each others' company were we, that we decided to take her home. The mermaid did not dissent, so we wrapped her up and took her to our house.We had a large tank put in the living room where she would stay -- illuminated and blue. It was delightful. She waited for us while we worked and twirled and flirted with us from behind the glass. I kept the taste of salt upon my lips. Sometimes we would just watch TV though. My wife and I took turns cleaning the tank. It did grow trying. She would swim about, feather and tickle, while we worked. It was pleasant but frustrating. Otherwise, she would sit on the couch with my wife. This was intolerable. Imagine watching your partner roll and squirm from behind grungy glass while you cleaned floating excrement. Judging from my wife's irritability, she felt the same. We got a filter. We watched TV, but she needed attention still, batting her eyes, waving her gills. We tapped on the glass and waved. We blew her kisses. The filter broke. It got pretty bad. We hauled away the tank and moved her to the bathtub. We showed her how to run the water. We took baths with her. My wife grew jealous about the fairness of the baths, but I wasn't sure from what angle. We bickered about feeding her. We stopped taking baths altogether. We watched TV. One day a episode of Magnum P.I. reminded us of something, but we could not make out what. I got p from the couch and went into the bathroom. The bathtub was full. The water was green but empty. There was something dried crisp on the floor behind the heater.

Postcard 136

On what land would we stand if we honored all our treaties, honored all our vows?
There are not enough downy blankets for this shattered scattered land.
What would be if our hands were strong but softly laid?
We could calm. We could calm slow waves.
A map. A map and empty rings. Fingerless hollow eternities
Drag up all the wire of grids and vertices.
Click click the collard cable's coil. The spool will snap unsewn.
What graft and crooked drafts have been obscured?
What little universes, glorious cosmos of life, have been deferred?
Our children? Children all caulked and cracked, stunted. Inured.
There's not enough whiskey in this world to cover bloody topography.
And what if we made a promise of fidelity? And we held to truth in troth?
What shine! Oh hear us:
Cynic slosh. Halogen twinkle. Nylon dross. Patent leather plastic gloss
There's not enough sleep for knife-light dreams