in this prison

this is an older poem, written in the mojave desert may 2002
i'm posting it now because i've had it on my mind for a few days and dont know why


in this prison there are many birds
in the back yard of romance there are
many birds - gray jays and warblers and
sparrows and ravens - there are doves on
every fence - they grow like fruit on every
fence and the fruit on the trees are birds
too - waiting to drop and spread their skins
and let their seed take wing and climb
up into the sky - above this prison there is
no fence - to climb to the sun - to visit the blue
bottom of the sky - the overturned sea - the spilled
and spilling sea - we sink with ease into the
great sky - the large and boundless bounded sky -
bound it curves and curving comes home to roost and
here it abides in the backyard of romance as birds that
slide down the stream of blue and hang as fruit on every
fence - they fly down the sky as planets fly and flung -
not free - bound to whatever sun as they find - and every
sun is captured in all suns' gravity - and stars and
sea are also bound by love in this prison filled with
birds where every tree bears fruit that flies straight toward
the dirt where wings abound - spread and spreading under ground
and climbing down into the sky and glory there toward the sea and
minerals that walk and breathe and shed their skins and cast their
seed - in this backyard of romance i am the seed and hang
inside every bird on every fence duty bound whose wings are
clenched to their breast and i depend from every fence and dropped
and dropping toward the sky's blue embracing infinity and toward the
nest where i will feed the birds who grace each prison fence or i will fall
from some loose beak and shed my skin and spread and spreading the dirt will take
me to her need - the seed the earth and love's command - stretched or
compressed - there's only time in this backyard of romance - the moon and
sun consimplify - they kiss and bleed and scrape their sides against roughened
space and beauty's need - my own blood's here to testify - i've been below
and been beneath the dirt that grass grows tall to hide in this backyard
of romance where birds descend to complicate the air with voices that
are rarely heard and seed the fence that grows and growing contains
the rest - in this prison where birds are true to the sky's
command and following they swoop to light and flower full
on every fence - in this prison the sky the sea are one
with each and call for birds to take the seed and this
is how the seed may leave and find the earth that's
moist with need -