Easter 2013: Tallis Canon

All praise to Thee.

I am so thick with memories. It is as if
I'd never washed at all -

the mud and wet hay,
that soft fur, the kid goat's muzzle,
the gray bare trees
and cerulean sky.

Ducks guzzling in puddles,
chickens squawking,
the cow chewing stolidly,
the white mother nanny
hard and disinterested.

What happens when we grow -
do we blink in the light,
shy away, then go
and find the world too small?

Or can we somehow enter again
our mother, choose from the beginning
to give all burstingly?

To wait for months underground
and wake as freshly,
undaunted, lean and fasted,
singing greenly
what we lived for in our first undoing.

I am finding
it was safe under snow and
Almighty wings.






"All praise to Thee" and "Almighty wings" taken from the Thomas Tallis canon.

Spring Peepers

I have not looked at your face
this way in a long time.
I forgot that peaked chin,

those eyebrows asking questions,
infant delicate.

The water of your pond-brown eyes,
the slipped chisel on your nose, those
indented happy accidents.

Lips more resolute
than I remembered.



I have not heard spring peepers in so long
I almost did not notice. There are sounds now -

Red-winged blackbirds,
song sparrows, a raven picking bits

of sticks to nest with. I stopped to watch,
but he chid me, dropped them
innocently.

I left a trail of prints in the chilled mud,
spreading my toes,
hoping they'd be smiled at.

Born Today

What is a new day,
taken like a vitamin,
a fresh Q-tip,
the tang of citrus?

What are days for
except to parcel up our lives
as tidy gifts,
bombs,
and time capsules?

I wrote once,
           People shouldn't be allowed 
                              to be this angry
And another time,
          Why am I so unconscionably happy?

One day I cringe beneath the weight
of my own head's hair,
another feel the lift
of every leaf.

No wonder you named me 
secretly,
in a deep place where I could not scream
and did not want to know
what that wetness was,
dripping down my throat -
your cold hands 
pressed to my temples -

because what other 
throb than this
burns through
pores and cleanly
births me?

White Mountains

This is the

world.

Love created it.

God moved His hand here, 

over a sleeping body.

Signs pass, mountains pass. Snowy camels, crouching lions.

Perfect Nubian Dairy Goats.

The slant sun amber on the pines.

I would like to live on a mountaintop,

To turn an age you can turn over in your hand, 

that feels the same.

We repair slowly. 

I am free.

Love can unmake it.

I would like to live on a mountaintop. 

"That's where the sun touches last."

"Love made the bond. Love can break it, too."

-Terrence Malick's The New World

-Naarita Arnold-Avila

On the Day of the Passing of Dr. David Lumsdaine

Why not today?

A day I felt particularly alive, going outside
in steady cold rain.
Wearing red and smiling, opening my hands,
tilting my face, blinded, whipped
by wind.
Feeling water soak up through the cracks
in the soles of my boots.

We should always pray and not give up.

Why?

Were vigils not enough? Or were we led into your heart a little
yesterday, among the monotypes -
gently led to stillness long enough
to hear your yes through the no of this day?

Death is always irony. And there is something inside of me
that is loosened like a bird,
that is sharpened,
awake.

I will not give up. I will pray.

Why not today?





Luke 18:1 "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." 
(Shared with me by Dr. Lumsdaine fall '12).

Four Weeks Without Eucharist

you peeled your skin off slowly in front of me
there where we burned our feet in the snow.

you tell me i will write poems about myself
but i will not.

i could write your crucifixion
on the back of my hand.    the stairwell
    your firm shoulder
your close breath        leaves as you are

like steam     like rust and green and
avocado eyes. your burning almond eyes
your thick sap     your eyes two sunken canoes
i drowned in.

there is
your skin on my tongue.

No One is Enough

How like feathers
 like the slow growth of hair

I have seen nothing
today.
  have not been
silent.

There is nothing but to fear God and keep his commands.








"Now all has been heard; 
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man."

-Ecclesiastes 11:13 NIV