Love

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.

Growth

Do you hide when the night growls;

when the liquid that falls from a heavy sky

sloughs the grime

from windows,

from streets,

from my hands?

It makes all things to each other naked

as your words, washing over my face-

this, too, is a solvent

better than water.

But then,

where does what is washed collect?

What, still, is sanctified?

It is sure a purer thing

where the ground is not shy,

where your voice is not swallowed by the din,

and the sky is burgeoned

with a wetness that will fatten the summer grass.

Thunder sings in the cleansing,

giving a question, falling away with the wind,

an answer, leaving with the rain;

and both holding each the other.

This, too, is a kindness

better than faith.

Bazaar

It’s nice to meet you, as well.

These things laid before you
on the blanket,
recently lifted
from my repository
are indeed for sale,
and I’m glad they’ve caught your eye.

Some are questions;
some, answers;
though they do not always match.

I offer collections of mysteria,
and gatherings of the plain.

I offer of the disconcerting,
and the unique.

So, then-
what will you give me

for the lock of whitened hair,
the stretch of cracked earth split by fenceline,
the barn owl’s call in the evening,
this cup of tears,
that lingering late-summer kiss?

What will you give me
for my dog, fading in my arms,
my sister, leaping from the ocean,
my mother’s laugh-lines,
my father’s tire tracks,
my grandfather’s letters?

What will you trade me
for staring into the void of the midnight sky?

And what will you trade me
for judgment,
or forgiveness?

What will you give me?

Peacefield

What of these words

printed in a darkened room,

what of the light coming in under the door,

what of the field beyond,

and you; what of you?

See the moon, who looks down upon us;

she watches her children

without remorse or direction.

We are seedlings under the summer willow-

me, thrown with the rocks

as the horse paws the earth

of the field that lies fallow around us;

and you, rooted in the rich ground,

bending in the wind, arms raised

in appeal to heaven each night.

The Wyrding Way

Near the dead of the lake,
in the night of the woods,
the witching hour becomes thick and heavy,
where the divine will not pass.

The ones who borrow are hiding in the trees,
in the minds of the forest,
in the cracks of the earth,
in the deep mire of the evening.

Here the moon comforts the sun,
who whimpers in frustration where he cannot reach-
a tangle-copse of raven burdens.

The town turns out quilts
of every glorious color and heavenly design,
and I am a stiff black thread for the silver needle-
threaded perfectly, and useless for sewing.

She knows when the witching will happen,
but in her prison I cannot reach her,
and the light of my power is stopped in a dam.

Under the oak,
Under the holly,
Under the yew,
they gather.

The argent circle hung from my neck
is a signet of sacred light to stay the snake,
and a sigil to draw the venom.
Bones of a horse jaw I clasp, ward of the evil eye.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for a sinner, now and at the hour of my death.

When they dropped the ashes of my ancestors,
I remember a spirit rising from the shards,
wailing and chained to the ground under the half moon.

Someone holds aloft an effigy of straw.
It will raise a horror of bones from my still-warm body,
and I will become a golem for the rest of my days.

The inkwell is broken, shattering black over the parchment;
I was held by the heart when baptized in the waters of Styx.

Some change, a stick of gum, and this.

This? This is “Daydream.”

It’s made partly of memory

that leaks into consciousness.

It’s true!

Here, hold it for a minute.

You can see house;

if you turn it this way, it becomes dog, or horse;

place it under water- it becomes death;

lift it up to sunlight- it becomes running through fields.

I’m not careful, to be honest.

You can cut yourself on the edges.

But it’s an essential effect

to keep in your pocket,

for when you’re waiting in line

or find yourself on a beach.

Shrine

Here are the many-colored portals of history,

where rain slides down city windows

like weak wine,

and we each receive tongues of flame

and names, like

Ubermensch, and

Rose of Sharon,

to cover our childish names:

Drink of Dust, and

Watch the Sky.

So we travel this way,

or that way, and someone says,

“Do you like this apartment?

You can live here, and work, and cook, and love,

and say whatever you want,

unlike Joan of Arc.

In fact, her ashes were mixed

into the brickwork of this fireplace;

now you can both send a burnt offering

to heaven every night.”

But this is what I’m saying:

if we drifted backwards awhile, perhaps,

we’d remember

those other names.

Laughter

Have you ever been lied to?

You are Heaven’s daughter.

Some say “God is dead,”

and you say “I think not,”

and I say “That’s a free Sunday.”

What will you do?

Take offense?

It’s been thirty years since my last confession.

Here, let me tell you my sins…

I’ll start with my birth. Now you try.

For penance, let’s count the last ten years.

Tonight, I will have a dream of our childhood.

Mother will hold our hands as we wander the museum,

not so much from a fear of losing us,

but to transmit the shock of space and time and meaning.

Now that you are sure you have purpose, and I am special,

I can reflect on the fact that this meaning has no meaning;

it slaps to the ground and disintegrates

under the slightest wind.

Besides, do you know how

immense and ancient everything is?

Fine.

If you come to the museum with me,

we’ll find a drinking crowd afterward.

I’ll play guitar,

and you can dance.

Iron

They hoard their trinkets:

Children, dogs, and houses;

monuments

to the funeral of common fellowship.

And yet the wick of superstition

burns;

faith may be an island

on which one becomes shipwrecked,

and most find their loves

ashen,

carried by the wind.

But you,

I would have you stay as common,

and smoothed,

and beautiful;

filled with irregularities

like the rose quartz I hold

in my hand.

Bloom

Sudden stars tossed on the raiments

of a red evening,

resting in the desert air.

Woman, talk to me;

your words are thunder…

 

Cloudlings vault low

over the belly of a dreaming earth.

 

Remember this:

your hair is flowering grass

bending on a draught moon.

When you leave in the morning,

remember this:

my eyes are hewn rock

baking under streams of sunlight.