at the fringe

at the fringe

Is love

the human condition

or

the human exception

and what of the existence

of an exception,

does it, does it really?

Humans seem to love

to believe

in an exception.

Is this our condition,

(we hope that we are smart.

I hope less of that when I am beneath

the alder canopy, I care less to hope for things.

Less I need love like a solid meal. I am

hardly hungry.)

Dear yesterday and again, yesterday,

Can you tell me if love is our exception,

love the clasp between our threaded data

and mycelium, love and so we will all

be very happy when we die,

and not at all afraid?

Dear racking dream,

in my dream I could not find my Dad.

I was so terrified. My Dad beneath sunset

cliffs of orangey pumice or creamy chalk,

my dad in the surf and scraping low tide,

long fall then gone. Later speaking to him

on the telephone, wild relief was a heron or

crane

Dear shattering dream,

in last night's dream my mother

felt it was time that we no longer spoke.

I had hurt her or grown older, and older

daughters must be fed to the distant panoramas

which conjure home

Again I pull at the fringe