Love

Bones

Then said Almitra,
“Speak to us of Love.”

were you born homesick?
why do you even have words
in this place?
it’s 2:37 AM inside you
here there is no clock
no slicing of time
there is no one here

to remember your first car
to call you Jezebel
to take down your blue ribbon
to pass you a plate of bitterness

that redwood
will not tie a weight around your heart
and make you thank him for it
the fog-blanket moving
will ask nothing of me
nor will it drain my self
and beat me for being empty

can you let yourself die?
you have known true nightmares
but… can you?

i don’t need that tree
for my self to live
i don’t need that fog
i don’t need your breath
inside me

but it would be nice

it would be nice to die / eventually
don’t you think?

i fear one day we may get lost
you and i
in the godhead of the wild
and uncover all the secrets
they’re afraid of.

credit: the author

Phoenix

So you,
spark fed by the wind
laying waste to the forest;
whisper on the ear
becoming a tornado;
ripple spreading in the ocean,
birthing the tsunami;

the soul of the earth
men would let blood for;
and the flower
growing from the bones of the dead,

what say you to sleep?

And what fault then
lies in the spark,
in the breath,
in the ripple?

We are, all of us,
formed from the dust of the ground
and the death of the star.

So who is to blame this night?
The beauty of this destruction
is in the birth from the ashes.

Leylines

Roads of dirt, and of pavement,
fences of split rail, and of barbed wire,
lengths of time, linked together in chains;
we move along them,
now racing, now clinging-
each of us under the same sun,
each of us with the same heart;
we stand in our own clearings,
build our own altars,
and send up our own prayers
that drift into the sky;

even though

we sit under the same tree,
ears crushed by the same thunder,
held by the same embrace of the morning,
laying flowers on the same grave,
and folding the same hands-
some smooth as alabaster, some rough as rawhide.

And sometimes,
sometimes,
the web converges,
sometimes I meet you,
sometimes the rhythm aligns,
the tide goes out, taking our footprints,
the shadows collapse, light breaks over the horizon.

Sometimes,
you rest your head on my shoulder,
and I rest mine on yours.

Angel

Shackled to rock
above high cliffs of white,
where clouds gather in the shapeless dark,
thunder growls
and spits lightning
on her head,
illuminating
rains that fall down her face,
mixing with tears
that flow around her smile.

Each drop is a moment.

When the air is still,
she lights what incense is left
in this nameless place
and prays,
making music without instrument,
holding the lock that binds her,
watching the flame dancing across feathers
torn from her wings.

There is a key.
I have seen it.

Now,
if you have ever wondered
how a star can die
or a diamond can form,
why beauty has no age…
if you have ever seen
a bird in its cage,
you will know why she sings
the way she does.

Haven

Frost clings to cascading haystacks

in the comfort of a low fog bank,

resting

in the benediction of the softened morning sun;

the rocking chair, holding a rhythm,

the barn door, open like a hymnal,

the fenceline, stretched as a sheet of music;

eddies of sawdust dance in the light.

This is distinct,

this is a dilation of time,

this is intercession,

this is the mote in God’s eye,

and the blessing of memory coiled in on itself

with the old lariat in the corner.

Listen to this silent song:

a distant scrap of laughter,

brushing off a rising wall of cut granite;

the fading warmth of an embrace

stealing away into the mist.

Like the mason’s craft,

the mortar cracks to dust;

the stone remains.

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.

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?