Now the birds speak in secret rhythms
and the trees bark in secret sounds
and the people rush in secret thought

and they push the thoughts into the shape of words
and sometimes someone among us
sticks her head into the

shiny phosphorus blue vat
of language
and listens, like a skeleton

to the pulsing of life within,
and she tells us
of secret rattling angles

to watch for and to reach into
with strange oceans
and deafening skies

that can be mapped and measured
only by sounds
and never by meanings

and once we can tell where we are
using the nearest star
as it relates to the ragged water (a map of voices)

then we can plant our feet into the good ground
and go to the rodeo
and answer the plum colored hawk

and sing to the river
in good faith
god presses his mouth around our head

he breaths out
he breathes in
and we are resuscitated in the goofy atmosphere of god

where there are highways and bowling
and tattooed by the sun
a circus

made by the prayer of breathing and living hope
and barbed eyes
where coyotes hang


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and cowboys hammer
posts and branches
to keep us inside

as much as keep someone out

and the prayer that is

and it is answered with a breathe
gods lips against our own
we breath in

we breath out
he breaths out
and sigh

alive again

the unexpected

discovery
of a b-side
of life


(a map of voices)


a warning to others who would come this way
an animal who has seen things
a horn twisted into shapes

understood by strangers
recognized by demons
an invitation in the secret language of trees

sung in wild shapes
by a child