I wrote this poem a while ago...but it seems appropriate now

january sunday morning in fresno

colors I cannot name fly at me

in particle-stream-photon-waves

striking the rods of my eye at a magnificent rate

passing over and

under the pelican’s patient wings

I am anxious to know if his wing tips are

wet – they are only

one inch from the swells

poems are a great stock pot

boiling down to the sticky bottom

the tastes of all my senses

which is why at your wedding I watched everything so closely

and yet,

now the mottle on the Mesolithic bird’s back

is the same color as Nina Simone’s voice

crashing the mountains into the heart of the sea

over sunday morning tea

over heard talk about money

and nothing;

the silence of watching

is the same color as the line of sea melting

rain sometimes the naming of colors

is similar to the naming of children

colors name days and remain unnamed

casting shadows over all our conversations

how we choose our words

whether we avert our eyes

and often days are gray,

when they should be grey sea days

of my longing and aching – speaking

with rhythm

salt on my lip which

the wind dries

sea days remind me of the

Welsh grey blue green changing of the seasons

eyes of my wife

which call me to a heritage that is not my own,

eyes that speak terribly of love

divine neither of us can sound,

though the mountains should tremble at our surging

there are days when I run headlong into new words

and they break me open

tearing my heart fourteen times

cold grey rain at Laguna Beach at your

wedding slips of the seals’ oily skin

I am soaked -

by mud of colors I have named

speak to me in the language of moment

phrases that twist my tongue which I cannot learn

‘less I am taught one by one

starting with salt stinging my eyes

battering my rods with a brilliant array and speed and size

giving me five, eight, ten more senses until I

can pronounce the joy color of wind making my

skin leather and my heart

no longer just moving blood in my veins

but beating in a solid world of light