Memory

Midnight Exigent

Now on the keys of this machine
you rest your hand,
the blinking space of the first code-line
mocking your furrowed brow.
Children run past, brushing your knee.

Laughter.

The scent of rain and smoke invades,
and is lost.

A flash of hair wreathed in sunset,
a pickup truck,
a dog licks your palm.

You are in love.
You are alone.
You are watching your mother open her presents.
You are leaving on the 9:40 flight.

(Was it on a beach? Or a dirt road?
The waves… were they water? Or wheat?
Was it my father’s voice, or my daughter’s hand?
I can’t seem to– wait! Her kiss! Was it?
What did I want to… be? Who?)

You are leaving on the 9:40 flight,
under the weight of such a wild and particular gift
from the universe.

And a clock is such a heavy thing
compared to lovers
in a dance entwined…
or to the boy.

Was there a boy? You’re almost sure of it-
in a bike helmet and a bedsheet cape,
thrusting a wooden sword,
crying in defiance welcome
against the spilled-out midnight sky,

Now drain your whiskey,
and admire the slow burn in your belly
as you say “Yep, coulda been…”,
only to hear the other old men fire back
“Aw,  bullshit!”;
because you know,
somewhere,
they’re pulling at the same strings–

as beside the same still waters,
thy cup runneth over.

Knighthood

Meaning, and purpose. Why?

Sunbreak. Starfire.
Endless.

Some seek the fat of the land
to fill the table,
and some seek the horizon.
Did I tell you the one
about the warrior
who fell for the angel?

Yet on this small sphere,
where sand gets caught
in the grinding gears,
and the report is due by Friday,
and the soccer game
and the baby shower
and the static
and the robbery and the stabbing,
and the lawn across the street;
your neighbors who kneel in church
crushed by obligation and gilt,
this is where
we build our seconds
upon seconds upon seconds
around anxiety
until our blood vibrates
from dawn to dusk.

And so we forget
the girl, pointing up
at the sparkling infinity black,
asking “What is that one?
What is THAT one?”

We forget
the boy, stick in hand,
blanket draped over shoulders,
shouting in triumph
“The dragon is dead!
Did you see? Did you see?”

And we forget
the warrior,
standing next to
the angel lying in bed,
a beautiful atrocity
watching him hold the past
and the future,
watching them lock eyes,
watching him think
for the first time,
Maybe… I can do this.

Garden

“I’m gonna get my mom flowers for her birthday.”

The little one I’m watching for the evening
is telling me her secrets
as we drive home in the summer heat.

“From where?”
I’m curious.

“From my garden.
That’s where the flowers grow!”

“They do?”

“Yes! And love.
I’m going to give her love.”
She turns her palms up, imploring.
“That’s where the flowers grow.”

“I had no idea.”

She brushes the bundle of peonies
against my ear;
the scent of a mild sweetness
politely invades my nostrils.

“Where is my grandpa?”

Her grandmother
continues gazing out the window.
She was born on the other side of the world.
“He go to see God.”
As if it were a road trip.

The little one
looks out her own window.
“Oh.”

(A day before he passed,
my own grandfather opened his eyes,
cognizant,
searching for a window.
The blinds were shut.
“I don’t want to go.”

“Why not?”

“Because.
I know I’ll never see her again.”

She had passed
a few years before.)

We tell our children
there are no such things as monsters.

The little one clears her throat.

Raucous stormclouds gather in rising fists
towards heaven.
The heat outside is hell.

“The storms are spirits!”

“What?”
I wasn’t aware of this.

She leans in to tell me her secret.
“The storms… are all made of spirits.”

She points
at the approaching immensity
of water and air
bringing gifts of life and of fire.

She whispers,
“That’s where the thunder grows.”

Paladin

Years later,
he feels the vial
against his chest
that holds
the only fragment of lightsong
given freely to him.

At night, sometimes,
he drifts
to a dead and thankful sleep,
as it melts,
the glass unvitrified,
the sand photonic
hourglassing inside him.

Always,
the next morning
it is whole,
emanating the piece
of the light
of the heart
of the hand
that sought to clasp his;
and even to raise him up
out of darkness
everblack.

Shaking his head,
he pushes forward,
raising his shield;

the demon is already swinging.

Absolution

everyone in this
defiled city
participates
in the dance of death

Not a blood sacrifice
on the altar of conquest;
not a dutiful chore
checked off with the groceries
and the collection plate,
and the towel-folding;
nor a stipulation,
nor a bargaining chip.

No.
Not a tool.

The vessel of our worship,
the unseen conversation
of tactile grace in the dance electric-

God damn you
and the way your back arches
when you pin up your hair;
I cannot get your stain
out of my soul.

I would trace my fingertips over your scars like a murderer’s over rosary beads.

You know better-
lightning can strike the same place twice;
shall I show you?

When
I have to come up for air,
or my hand is saying “come here”;
when
your forehead is touching the ground,
or you are knelt with hands folded-

Is that not all a kind of prayer?
Will we make one another beg
for forgiveness?
What is there to forgive? Shadows?

Shadows have no pulse.

So,
tell me…
how long has it been
since your last confession?

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.

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.