(meltwater minted)

(August 2023. Emma and I cowrote the first stanza of this daopoem in the daopoetry app, but then the whole rest of the poem is all Emma. I love the first stanza, and the rest is great too. Emma was exploring Tahoe National Forest at the time.)

slow sunlight fills thick my glass eyes
honey sliding viscous through sweet throat
forms forgotten in dewdamp mind
settle me this one new thought hope
stamp a new face (meltwater minted)
open the old to new angles of wind

spring gusts of a young century rumor
the hazed horizon a god shaped sign
— we will see them return, eternal

(rewrite the past in the color of children
redraw my borders in shifting water)

promethean-cautious i cradle a torch
excavate the shadows under my feet
unknown if light spills hands over ridgeline
touch over tides over tongues over sands
(i mount my belief on the faiths of the damned)

for now this morning this hope
— this will suffice
the now and the was and the coming meet in
the slowfast spring sun
my glass eyes the open vessel hopeful
— suffused

the wind bears word —
       we have begun

(mostly by Emma Kumleben)