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NOVEMBER SKY
I remember the closing
eyes
the last breath
the silence after the snowflake
of life has melted and gone.
I yearn for words of comfort
for great peace to blow the hurt
away, for a brief minute to share
your name in this November sky.
I understand
the sharpness of tearing away
into something only memories can gather,
the great depth of wishing
the ears could hear
or the blind could see
the way you will always feel.
Only sharing in the likeness
of your sorrow I may speak
without a sound.
I will take your burden
we will find a quiet hill somewhere
and our fingers will press down
and pull away the land
together we will bury it.
for my friend Paul Moore
A HANDFUL OF NAMES
River of remembrance
river of pain
two sides of the same
rusted coin
found at the bottom of yesterday's well
a wish that went unanswered.
I've seen this movie once
before, same clothes, same lines,
same ending, I am
the same.
A shroud for April
raging from the grave
two hands grasping nothing
as in life, so in death.
Precious, fragile, temporal
there are only a handful
of names, I am among them
numbered.
A pale horse waits
to be mounted, stomping clay
with impatient hooves of bone.
BLOOD
There was rhythm in the
air that morning
a seed-planting rhythm in a land
of broken ground. It traveled
from my heel to
my fingertips and
circled in my neck until
I bowed my head in submission. The beat
continued, echoed across
the arid stretch
of the hillside and all
of the faceless people stood
swaying to the rhythm
the compelling metronome
of hammer and nail and
the crescendo mounted until the blood
the blood gushed hot and wet onto the grass
we held our breath until they lifted
the crossbar over our heads, until the sky
turned to black cloud, until he whispered that it was finished
and the soldiers took him down.
But the rhythm never left my feet
kept time with
the beating in my heart, turned
my blood to wine.
DARK WINGS
I see a moon
out of orbit
falling into
a laughing star
exploding
like fears
feathers dark
and spreading over
my child's bedroom window
wings tempered in iron
furnaces of light
tap at the glass
deep, bloodless
eyes below hooded lids
that open and close
with falling of rain
or stars
solemn, avenging.
In the doorway
in the dark
aware of every breath
no one sees me
no one smiles
tomorrow I will summon a Doctor
a specialist, a grandmother
a friend
and my wife
we will all watch a different part of her
as it passes into the raging star.
ALBUM PARK
Not running anymore
the thunder of blood in my ears
the only hint of rain
quiet lightning across the tree line
shatters the night sky for an instant
then heals again
heals in me the storms you've raged.
No answer in the whisper of leaves, no
hope in the cold of a cat's-eye moon
I inhale my portion of the dark
exhale the deep ache of your ghost in me
give back all the hurt I've ever known.
I give it back.
BESIDE A SLOW RIVER
Here,
beside a slow river
receiving alms
of sand, wages of heat
prayers of rain
I admit failure.
Here,
beneath tired limbs
ghost-brown cicada shells
cling to the gray mesquite
where I lean my shoulder
contemplating nothing.
Here,
in the long shadow
of a sage-covered mountain
bound in a chain
of wondering
I am quiet,
holy and evil in a desert of wandering
souls, driven by thirst
and sin, forgiveness
and sand
receiving alms
wages, and a few
heavy prayers.
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