SHELTER
James Reed
Cover painting by Paul Havas
Drawing by the author
Sebastopol , 2006
32 pp, Hand-sewn


PATHS
for Jeanne Heuving

Feet worn paths
in grass or weeds
city planners see
as yearning lines
composed of time
longing to close.
Longing is made
length of desire
and moves there
without measure
beyond all reason
names of things
or calculation.



GATE
for Denney Goodhew

Traveling a path
from here to there
will find a gate,
a place on a path
to stand and wait,
hear the rhythm
of the body's breath
circling its hinge
present to past
past to present,
a weightless thing
passing through
to the other side.



HOUSE

As a thing made
by many hands
is of many lives
abiding inside
its ring of time,
a house is living
in all the ways
all of its people
give it its being,
fill its spaces
with gathering.



SOIL

We can stand
on ancient stuff--
sand and stone
bones and shells,
deceased of late
fallen leaves
and entire trees,
a press-crumble
into elemental
what is left
of once living,
what as soon
is alive again
with small thing
possibilities,
something large
in its beginning.