Retrieval/From the Shallows

...We knew if we looked away we'd lose them sooner, lose any hope of crossing over, any sign of that world they existed in whole not as part only of our watching, our back-sprawled view as they circled our resistance to rising, our squirm against the itch of pasture grass for the real fear of missing the dive, that breath-caught, heated instant shot with such control we trembled...

...Low streams of autumn allow the speech of stones., .How far shall we listen for the tremor native to our voices...

...Your thin hands felt chilled like my own, pressing that far reach between words* We've moved through days as through repeated wicket openings, bone ash under our feet, receiving something from coldness and heat, the ceramic beauty of skin that can be seen through as fine china...

...And despite all we have missed, we go on because we must for those who have counted for us, for all, really, who have lived on those moments when birds suddenly compose out of cloud and scream something chameleon as our names from fabulous throats...

...From the Shallows After Hearing My Mother's Voice on Tape from Twenty Years before The river stones shine through shallows, a late slant of sun floodlighting their litany of speech, and a yellow leaf-ghost birdfloats limb to limb, touching the husk of my skin with a faint searing, a reminder that every sadness in every life can be your own, but joy you may never feel at home in...

...Poems Dixie Partridge Retrieval (after my Bister's poems) In the iced sky, I see the child milk-whiteness of your skin, and hold my eyes to the receding form of the plane you leave on, as we used to as children with hawks or eagles when they caught their prey, lifted and left the earth/ it seemed, for good...

...We still do not know why witnessing something beautiful is followed by loneliness...

...I mouth sounds of names for their soothingmoss , catkin,, .pebblehear ripples out of rock, my mother's voice in my throat: language pulled out of us to become release...