Poem
-
Sept. 1-8, 2014You fold this sweater the way a mothbuilds halls from the darkness it needsto go on living—safe inside this closeta family is gathering for dinner, cashmerewith oil, some garlic, a little salt, lit...
-
July 21-28, 2014I speak bones to you in the morning—hollow, fragile, ordained frameworks,their marrow winnowed by earth time.I hear emptiness in my pleas for health,forgiveness, prosperity. Echoes ossify...
-
July 7-14, 2014One February morning, pausebetween kitchen and dining roomto weep at Belle and Sebastiansinging about God. The cold is goodfor maple syrup, makes sap run,you aren’t sure how, or why this pretty pop...
-
June 9-16, 2014There stood by me this night the angel of GodActs 27:23I have no fear of storms since I heard His voice—my Accuser crying out of the sun.While I am chained in the shivering hold,the others cower and bleat to Baal.But no fury can last. Light finds a way—it streams through cracks in the throttled planks,and illuminates the silk riggingof a small...June 9-16, 2014
After the murder of Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play, Brutus appeals to the charged, fearful crowd in a speech written in prose. He ends up getting his point across. People can see his side and why Caesar’s ambition was a threat to their freedom. But Mark Antony immediately follows him with his iconic speech composed in the rhythms and contours of verse—“ambition should be made of sterner stuff.” It blows the first speech out of the water. Antony stirs the...
May 26-June 2, 2014What milk what honey you were promised gall in ZionKiss the weeping wall’s cheek love sows salt in ZionIt’s the recurring dream of all who throw down roots hereYou’re holding a shovel amid a thousand falling Zions...May 12, 2014I hung my soul to dry on a fence post near the property line,Just out of sight.Days passed, rains came; it stiffenedSmall black spots grew bit by bitThen it was past rescue...April 21, 2014Ursula, shot dead, marched the ten thousandvirgins, just walked them! with the pope in towto say she could or to prove maybe thatthe purity of youth was worth the shockof Huns beheading them, each and everyone, as God’s...April 14, 2014You can’t say hand without picturing either a rightor a left. You can’t think moon withoutseeing it in one of its phases.When the arrowheads riseto the surface after the winter rainsyou can’t say again. This is a first discovery...April 7, 2014Snowflakes surprise us,small and aimless as we ourselves,so light they sift upwardsin random puppetry.Yesterday we arrived in Englandon the edge of April....