Last Afternoon in the Park with Heather

You can’t fake showing up.

She knelt over me with the black umbrella, her face sculpted against the sky. The rainclouds rushed together, massy and edged with gold. Only a moment before, the sky was so bright my left eye watered when I tried to look at her. 

I closed my eyes and lay back, listened to her voice, and slid tall heads of grass between my fingers. The overgrown swayed around us.

The wind kept her up last night, but she wasn’t angry. Anger seemed childish then. And life seemed carved out of marble, or else full of the stuff marble means. Bernini must have seen this. This much. Rain.

And we tried to name, and we couldn’t name, the richness. We played games with our tongues, trying to understand. And we finally grew quiet.

Here our only need is

Incarnation.

April 27th, Train To Roma Termini

I feel closer to you, somehow, 

in this light. 

In this lack of sleep, this dreaming, 

sweating, dying. Dying. Feeling love flame out, 

flame within quietly, 

in a wordless prayer. 

Love burns, and light burns, 

and the world is hard, and the world is beautiful. 

We are strangers.

I do not know you. But I want to. I want birds 

to fly between us. I want the softness of the stars 

to bind us. For words to mold into movement, and quietness. 

And mornings, and sunlight.

And light burns, 

and love burns.

Roma Termini. Sweat, urine, 

alcohol. Mouths hanging 

open. Green fields, feathery tops. 

Slanting light. Reflected light. Empty. Clear. Clarity.

Images swimming, 

emerging, fading. 

Interconnecting.

Eyes.

Being destined. 

Destiny. And where 

we’re headed. Somewhere. Anywhere 

we go. Everywhere, You are.

The dropping out from underneath, the guttural 

moan. The wail. No longer pretending. 

This is real, and this 

is real. And this is a practice 

of reality. Holding in, 

letting out, not trying. Doing without. 

Doing without trying.

My delight. My beloved. My weak, my lovely one. 

Will you look at me? 

Remember 

your first love. 

Purity is not denying love – it is loving 

one thing only.

Jesus.

Another beauty. A look 

that might have meaning, that might 

have permanence. 

That might span continents. 

I trust you to remember, 

but you may not believe. So believe. 

Believe.










Credit to Madeleine L'Engle, A Ring of Endless Light