Monthly Archives: September 2012

Eclipse of Light

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It was a solar eclipse
Splashing darkness
Across half the earth
Like a child stretching his blanket
Across the bare
Wood staircase–
Upstairs young man!
His mother admonishes

Never realizing
His life is the smallest
Gossamer thread

From her life to mine

They say
if you try
To look
Directly into the sun
During an eclipse
Seek professional help

Do they mean scientists or
Psychology?

I won’t know.

I just
Know
That staring
Straight into the
Face of God himself
Is impossible hubris
Unless…
The shadow of the Cross
Shields the mortal
Eye

Forgiveness

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Definitions of forgiveness
1. The Man on the Cross bleeding love out in each dying breath
2. The little girl abused until she was five who is so afraid of hell (thanks to Dante Alighieri) who says:

Even though it still hurts
To know what Charles
Did to me
I don’t want him
To go to hell

The pain of it all
Never ebbing
From her beautiful
Face.

To see God…

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The trajectory of flight
And the living animal in it
The color of the leaves
And the way they
Flutter to the earth
Gravity
And it’s seemingly integral role
In mating
Our divided selves

I understand my friend ignores
All these signs of his Creator
Blithely…

My little boy walks into
The room to talk to me
Small words in utter sincerity
And the perfect miracle of his face
Divine.

How can you not see?
The gift this child is?
The soft reflection
Of eternity in his eyes

Rain Song

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Once
There was the statue
Of a girl
Standing arms outstretched
Poised/face lifted
To reach the rain
Receiving Grace

I looked for her again
Years ago
They had taken her away
I am crying/she is missing
And all I can do is call to her

Come back
My heartbreaking daughter
Come back to the Garden
Of stones alive and flowers
Blooming now
The rain has come

The bodies of our dead

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You will say to me
Why are you grieving?
And I will show you the limp form
In my hands

You will ask
What is it?
And I will say
A dead salamander

You will say
They cannot live for long
And I will say
But it had a name–
I cannot say it

And you will ask
What is the big deal?
And I will tell you
Hope.

But what I will not say is that the prone and lifeless
Body of a man
Too easily resembles
This ephemeral creature

The day I spent for him
The last day I spent for him
Looking for a hat
Big enough to cover his fatal
Head injury
Fatal head injury
Never far from mind
The bodies of our dead.

The Rain Dance

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I see the light
Pouring out
Over the lawn at night
The girls in their pretty
Dresses fan out in the lines
Demarcating light and darkness
Can you hear the haunting
Music?
I can
The strings of slow lament
The partygoers
Lurching toward the wrought
Iron gates
Boozy and fatigued
Wondering
who will show us the way home?

Sky

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I ask him
Do you ever want to eat a
Peanut butter sandwich
Not because you are hungry
But because you are
Sad?

Yes. He says
And somehow this helps
Not because he is thin
And I am not
No.
Because the loss
The sandwich cannot heal
Must be faced
Hungry.

Forever

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If I could give you
The safe place
Perfect butterfly,
Wings the color of sunlight
wave through the glass

If I could give you
The shape of the boy’s face
The cities he sees across the dammed
River

If I could give you the boats
Alone on the water
And the sheer drop
Carved from stone

If I could give you these things
In a bottle called forever

You would understand
How I failed him
today
How I failed her
yesterday
How I fear tomorrow

Arms not strong enough
Forever