Life

Tabernacle

Hush, now;

the sun is spilling over these unending pastures,

and she is standing at the end of the field,

watching

the coupling and the uncoupling,

the warp and the weave,

the sky and the soil;

and, holding a handful of dirt,

sees light race to the edge of the prairie

where it drops off into space.

There is a voice, here,

a scrap of sermon remembered:

“…let us reap this rampant harvest from the firmament.”

She stands, letting the stalks brush her hand-

some are bent,

some are broken,

some are painted with a swath of morning,

and some are spattered with a thin trail of blood,

as tails of air uncoil in the wheatgrass

over miles of root woven to the earth,

pulling at the groundwater;

something moves, a pulse

insistent as the creak of a wooden pew,

in this place

unleavened as the bread

cooled upon the dinner table.

Hush, now;

she stands at the end of the field

as the wind stirs behind her,

and, for a moment,

picks fragments of ash

from a naked foundation.

Heirloom

This afternoon, I suggest
you both wander the antique shop,
instead of passing by,

and admire the woodwork
and what it may retain:

the bread that has been broken at this table,
the fears that have been projected onto this mirror,
the love that has been made in this bed,
the plate, cracked by the fist
born from the open palm of affection,

the dresser, once sitting by the threshold,
a father, recoiling at the sign above it, which says
“Bless this house”,

a mother, leaning on the armoire, saying
“Let this cup pass from me”,

a grandmother, holding a bowl,
staring at her hands in amazement,
saying “I am grown old”,

and a mural in stained glass-
a short blessing of sun in the shadow.

If you look closely,
you can see

the bones that have broken
constructing this life,
and the hands that have bled
building this house.

Communion

Summer’s final fruit clutches the bough;

her quill draws more ink

as ice dusts the window’s edge.

The candle’s wick burns,

and burns,

and burns…

the light of the eve deepens,

and for company:

scratch of the pen,

clink of the inkwell,

tick of the timepiece.

Supplication pours onto parchment,

added to the stack of prayers

growing beside the desk,

and steam lifts into the room

from a chipped china cup.

The spaces in between, punctuated

by the snap of burning logs

from the fire that takes in the air,

and sends up the smoke of dreams

that refuse to die.

There are ghosts here, you know.

They wander the acres outside,

and will often come sit by the mantle,

having forgotten themselves,

unaware of the lineage

hidden in the cracked, leather-bound Bible.

Even in an empty house,

a reliquary haven,

we carefully place our harvests of memory

in the rooms, and in the halls:

the grandfather clock,

the queen bed,

twin trunks in the attic-

one, empty;

the other, filled with sacraments.

This is a covenant, you know-

with the oak and the axe,

with the wheat and the chaff,

with the thread and the loom,

with the earth and the plow.

And as her pen moves in the twilight,

the ghosts watch through the window

as the apple falls,

and, crackling, hits the frosted grass below.

Ground

The boy pondered the spot of ground:

low, soft, and brown.

Slightly sunken from rainwater

(what little had come that season).

The embrace of the earth

wrapped lightly around a single friend.

I’ll join you one day, if what’s said is true, he thought.

A large pine and its children

covered the softened patch of grass,

waving their arms each night in song

(he has witnessed this).

As he sought to ponder, his father walked past,

behind him,

carrying something to the truck.

“Don’t tell your mother. There were tracks;

I think coyotes got the body a couple nights ago.”