Three Great Cups (2003)

When I read back
through my massed
stone colloquies,
I can see three
motions which
stay pure:
A voyaging mind,
my body's gallop,
this ache for you.

Inexhaustible
those three wells
from which I daily
draw, hungry for
more & aching for
what must rise--
writing the poems
working the bones,
stroking your feet.

What sustains
me in each encounter
I cannot say, but
the bread I find
there is always
enough for today
but never more.
This tells me
that all are of
the same humger
and thus ordained
(or wardened)
by God.

It is also clear
that I always
fail by wanting
more: For grander
fish hauled
from the deep, for
muscles bigger
than my frame,
for right here & now
all day and night.

Blessing and bane,
cool water with
astounding bite,
my altars have
all exceeded
their temples,
grown long
like vines and
red of tooth. How
I've howled in
the old woods
of the vacant word.
Worked this
poor body past stiff
and sore. And
oh my greed for
you, enough said!

God has given me
these preter-thirsts
but its mine to
give them back
to God's world:
No shore final,
this body old,
letting you go.

Three cups today
I fill and drain:
Balls for thought,
heart in the heat.
feet for naught!