They have no more wishes
Do they remember, that girl /
treading water in her cabin /
or the mother who held on /
for a long, last hour, praying /
until the tree itself gave way?
-
-
Assisi
Of all the towns offered /
in the Italian countryside /
the weight carried /
by the star /
of Umbria /
casts the longest shadow. -
I go down to the river to pray
I go down to the river to pray. /
Its water tumbles to the Mississippi, /
a major artery, open to the open sea . . . -
Driving north on Highway 21 to a doctor’s appointment
A blindingly bright January morning. /
In the distance ahead, to the east, /
a wink, /
a glint of metallic shimmer. -
(2017, Virginia)
On the day that hate rode into town /
We visited our neighbor in her new home /
She is over 90 years old -
Thirteen ways of looking at the garden
After the city, the garden /
is quiet, the leaves green /
enough to absorb every cry. -
Of death and pascha
WHAT PERSISTS /
there is the void /
there is the heavy immovable stone . . . -
Resurrection among the ruins
Can there be resurrection /
among the ruins? /Dare we imagine new life /
rising from these streets of death? -
Blue Psalter Hymnal #379: Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow
Children crack palm nuts milked of fats, / stripped of orange. They smack / nuts on rocks, split out the kernel of ndika . . .
-
Three hundred years after a forest burns,
it grows back fully / Six days after the flames / black bears return for berries. / The restoration / of the world leaks /through a broken dam
-
Weaving time
Mary spins and the thread twists / at just the right moment. / The tension tight, she winds it / on the shaft and then smoothly presses another bit of wool, / pinches the thread, sees it wind into true.
-
‘I like your scarf’
Says the mom, picking her kid up from / daycare / “I like your scarf” / Says the teenager in Dundas Square / “I like your scarf” / Says the woman in the grocery store as I reach for the eggs / We all smile gently as we gesture / At our own chests, our own hearts
