Dwelling Place
Where two rivers merge among cottonwoods,
where salmon scour mud from bottom stones,
walk along river banks scattering seeds.
Find a hollow bone, a riddled snag to siphon sky.

When kingfishers dive for your low notes,
when light rests from storing packets in trees,
steal the blessing for doorpost.

The House of Musing
The trick? To live without survival kits:
miracles, bottled water, fire starters, spells.
To stop grumbling to God and build
your hut in the wilderness.

No need to search or not search..
Just join hay stalk to hay stalk, bale to bale
until thick walls swathed with mud appear.
From within, the doorway frames the quiet

of a tree with a single leaf. You're safe
to examine the distance you crossed.
How you lived not knowing you lived.
How you postponed this reckoning

believing you lacked a desire to know.
Yet here you are listening to a leaf
scrape air, your hands smeared with mud,
your tongue reciting its alef-beit.