Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Our Pantheon


Stay with me by the river
I built a little house
there are snakes in the water
there are fields to the south
of the furrow

the rain comes
the snow comes
our house is an open eye
                                   our Pantheon
through which all nature pounds.

We will be cold as stones
in the morning

we will warm 
and move like fish



First of March, 2013

Jesus, You, right here. And me, too.
Because You are welcoming me into something.
Really?
Then show me. And help me believe and come,
all of me, none behind.

Take charge.
Lord, I know you so little. And even though
my every atom is Yours,  I am not aware of You as I should be. Or so
near You. Or so like You. Or so believing in You.
Perhaps I made You up.

Perhaps You swallowed me whole.



Monday, June 17, 2013

Last Leg, 1 AM


Tonight is our last on the road
in a hotel, before the last leg tomorrow. The drive will wear out my Dad,
already snoring again after a second awakening (the first by
my brother and me 
giggling over a nasty pair of ear plugs
I offered him in the dark).

The AC whirs and chills my neck and shoulders 
where I sit tucked 
beside my roll-away, trying not to wake 
the rest of them.

It has been a long day. 
At the Arby’s, twelve hours ago, my brother asked me,

Does today seem wrong to you?  

Mom red-eyed in the parking lot, 
on the phone. Dad without appetite. 
Another surgery. Another ordeal.

Not really,

But maybe I was setting up shields, re-reading eucharisteo,
fastening my eyes on a single leaf whizzing by
to say, “God knows that leaf, that one
among billions.” 

We passed the Georgia Peach, the Shot Tower, like every year
up to New Hampshire from the Florida panhandle.
I was warm and small.

I have been trying to practice Now. Like trying to see my footprint
before stepping forward.
But I can’t see this one, only feel it.
Only take the next step, presently.  Look back and see the others.

Only whisper in the dark as the waves lap,
“I used to be afraid of the ocean.”

I'll be glad to have a cemetery near. No better place 
for an evening walk, a ramble. For making you feel blithely mortal 
and blossom-like,

This is my birthday, and I, like everyone save Enoch,
have a grave somewhere,

Goodnight,




Piglet

How small in my hands,
now dangerously
thin,
feeding,
and rounding out again. Excrement
soft on your soft belly.

I cleaned you, captivated,
for you were a little, lovely thing

like six ropes of clay
like an insect I drowned
in the dishwater-

sentient, terribly alive,
so delicately needing me
and fond of me
for no reason.



Thursday, June 13, 2013

Old Rag

Whose mouth
licked up your tip
like an ice cream cone?

Prayer

What is prayer? Waiting, fasting -
cheek damp
across the pages,
knees red stippled in the floor?
Or words, or

silence pressed up in
grunts,
a pulled plow,
yelps like a cut thing?
Tight-faced child in the doctor's chair. It will
be over,
this might hurt
a little.

It is the plower cutting,
It is the earth splitting open:
sow.


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