“I saw the sky descending, black and white,Not blue, on Boston where the winters woreThe skulls to jack-o’-lanterns on the slates,And Hunger’s skin-and-bone retrievers toreThe chickadee and shrike. The thorn tree waitsIts victim and tonightThe worms will eat the deadwood to the footOf Ararat: the scythers, Time and Death,Helmed locusts, move upon the tree of breath;The wild ingrafted olive and the rootAre withered, and a winter drifts to whereThe Pepperpot, ironic rainbow, spansCharles River and its scales of scorched-earth miles.I saw my city in the Scales, the pansOf judgement rising and descending. PilesOf dead leaves char the air—And I am a red arrow on this graphOf Revelations. Every dove is sold.The Chapel’s sharp-shinned eagle shifts its holdOn serpent-Time, the rainbow’s epitaph.In Boston serpents whistle at the cold.The victim climbs the altar steps and sings:“Hosannah to the lion, lamb, and beastWho fans the furnace-face of IS with wings:I breathe the ether of my marriage feast.”At the high altar, goldAnd a fair cloth. I kneel and the wings beatMy cheek. What can the dove of Jesus giveYou now but wisdom, exile? Stand and live,The dove has brought an olive branch to eat.”

“I HAD a dove and the sweet dove died; And I have thought it died of grieving: O, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied, With a silken thread of my own hand's weaving; Sweet little red feet! why should you die - Why should you leave me, sweet bird! why? You liv'd alone in the forest-tree, Why, pretty thing! would you not live with me? I kiss'd you oft and gave you white peas; Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?”

“I stand above the tree level I am a tree I catch wind storm breaths My branches claw I drink sky It stretches me I don't care I catch jokes and luck from tall thin blue air”

“Be wise as a serpent and wary as a dove!”

“Every morning I was renewed, though. Air and light healed me, over and over. I got to where I depended on it. When I was feeling my worst, I would step out into the yard and put my hands on the branches of the little redbud. It made me feel like I was saying a prayer, to do this. I know that sounds like foolishness, but that little tree was like an altar for me. I stood there in the cold of early winter, wishing for the redbud to bear leaves so that I might put my face against them.”

“I saw doves and I thought they were rocks, but they were asleep. My breath made them stir, and they rocks took flight, the earth exploding... and my only thought was that I wanted you to see them, too.”