In memorium Donald Sandner
A day to say
no to the tribal picnic
no to the walk with Lois and her hounds
no to the impulse to call – anyone
yes to plants to clipping and watering
to thought about what is possible
if I keep my own perspective
though it is troubling and dark it is mine
no to sermons and ironies
on commuter trains
with their automatic doors
yes to the dream of the man
who left wife and work
to take a treacherous winter pass
yes to crisis the turning point
to relinquishment patience
yes to the poem that is not verse
but the living transforming fire
When our guide brushed our faces
with a hawk’s feather each of us
had a place to go
in a dark cavern I stood
revolted by a moving mass
of tumescent snakes
one rose waved like a hand before my face
You can bite me but you can’t kill me
and they reared up
forming a circle around me
Before he died he passed the feather
to me I cannot pretend otherwise