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

Envy

“That high light which is the only object of your longing.”

-Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, C.XIII. 86-87

It was a light like early morning,

like late afternoon. Yellow

and white and glowing.

Shimmering, fringed with fire;

Everything was holy.

He told me in a letter, in a look

that there was another. How good

to feel my heart change within me, loosened,

plied by love, consoled by the promise

of what I could not buy.

The corridor stretched its walls of glass, molten in sun,

leading me to the next house with its wooden stairs.

She knelt at his feet, her hands weaving.

I could be glad for them. I can, I will.

I am.

Quote: “Plied by love” – Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio, C.XIII. 39

English translation by Allen Mandelbaum.

Longing Makes the Heart Grow Deep

When everything falls back strange and empty

And we are no longer hungry, even,

No longer met by desire,

No longer thrilled by the sea.

desiderium sinus cordis.

We are covered in this great love,

that never needed us.

Come, Holy Spirit.

Everything comes close,

nothing comes in.

Nothing gathers to be fed upon,

everything eats itself away.

Come, Holy Spirit.

Pantheon, Roma

The first walls look frangible as a sliver of bark, yet

They endure. As they have endured two thousand years.

For me, tucked a corner of the fountain, they are

The only walls that matter.

Attempts at permanence rise everywhere:

The marble steps, the stone fountains, the painted shops

Left and right, but only here

Does the sun send a light that dissolves time.

This room is ancient, eternal.

A throbbing cavern, an incandescent dome.

Light pierces the shadows beneath its pillars.

It is a home for the soul.

Tidy bells of nearby chapels chime,

These clang in almost-rhythmic, aboriginal tones.

Other roofs keep out the sun and snow, but this

Is a wide open eye through which all nature pounds.

Master's House

To him, who’d never heard

Of any world where promises were kept

Or one could weep because another wept.

I.

He is out of place

in a world like this. A world

where wealth is taken advantage of, where

trust is only lubricant for trade.

He is the kind of master one hears

discussed by fence posts: “Well, he’s rich,

I suppose, but no businessman.”

He grows, but he grows etiolated.

This master, like his house, is painfully visible.

Ashamed of his shoulders and large,

awkward hands, his gently crowded teeth.

“He’s a good man, though.”

Just too trusting to prosper,

too moody. Simple. Young. Embarrassed by his power, yet

bound to show it off in a fantastic mansard rooftop

and pseudo-Gothic porch. Fragile as the glass in his windows.

He has the utterly naked look of someone 

being stared at, someone American and gawky. 

Someone who is about to be left alone 

again, and can no longer stand it.

II.

Do you know I hear

your voice above all others,

even when you speak

low? That I memorize

your footsteps, know

your stride. Remember

the color you wear

and notice when

you enter. Want

to be seen, and also

want to hide.

I could not sleep. I thought

I’d sweat and falter, but I spoke.

And you said, “that was kind.”

There is a deep loneliness

I thought you understood,

in our hush. Stairways

remember as do doors, trees,

front porches, and water troughs.

I wonder if I was new

to you. Or something chronic,

old, common. You’d heard

it, no doubt, a dozen

times. Did I disgust

you? I could not

hide. We can only be lonely

for so long. I did not know

until I saw your eyes.

III.

I cannot speak, I cannot

sing. I too am desolate,

desolate and even ashamed.

I will not stay in our house, now

it is so desperately empty.

I will go somewhere and become

lost. All that is present is a single

pair of tracks straightening

into the distance.

Quotes (In Italics, in order): W.H. Auden, “The Shield of Achilles.” Hirsch, “Edward Hopper and the House By the Railroad,” Ibid., Ibid., Carolyn Forche, “Travel Papers,” Hirsch, Ibid., Ibid., 

Credits: Edward Hopper, “House By the Railroad,” Terrence Malick, Days of Heaven.

Maundy Thursday

The day before

you died,

it was spring.

You told me

I was wild,

and you loved me.

The wind blew from everywhere

at once. You snatched

my hand and steered

me, through stinging

nettles, to the ridge.

We stood, clutching

the wire, swaying

like windblown grass.

You wrapped me

in laughter, drew

the whole world

into your eyes.

I remember no single tree,

or rock, or flower,

only The import

of a thing surrounded,

Here in body.

You did not know

you were making symbols

for the rest of my life.

Italics: Richard Wilbur: “The Eye”