THE MUSE
You owe me. Pay up. According to my accounts, you have...

CASUAL FRIEND
Send lies to the people listed below....

THE AWARDS COMMITTEE
This is to notify you that--but what's the use?...

THE WISE
The world could fall to pieces with no notice....

UNCLE AL
A chicken is a touchy creature....

THE OTHERS
Here where we live the lines are down and the surprises build into snowbanks...

DANNY
Dusty Clinton Township kids making paper roosters and snowball...

SAMUEL RENSBERGER
I am your grandfather's grandfather and through my wakeless sleep I dream...

OLD NEIGHBOR
East across low muddy fields and behind the screening trees you can see...

THE WORM COUNCIL
We call your attention to worms. Though sweeping ice age disaster...

THE HERON
I flew in down by the round deep pond behind your house...

WITNESS
I saw the largest moon ever rise huge bright yellow, sailing where it cared to...

FALLING


A fine grace of falling is in the leaves
gone beyond hanging and more pulled to earth
in their dry bat-lightness than in any
fullness of green.  To the roots, the worm-graced
soil, they flush and scatter the year's holdings.

The wind calls to the living, waking us
before dawn.  Cold inner lights spark our eyes.
We hold nothing in our hands, we open
to nothing inside:  our fine gravity
of loss, our center, our place of falling.