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THE INN

or

AN ADVENT PRAYER FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS

 

∴

 

there is no room at the inn.

there is no room here.

i have laced the newel posts of ascending stairs
with twisted garland and berries

but i have not laced my boots
for the journey you will set me on.

 

i have set the table with crystal
holding chocolate,
holding creams,
holding brandied nuts,
and next year’s dreams,

but i have not set my posture firm
to hold you.

 

i have lit the corners of this abode
with twinkling lights and LED
and candles that flare with scent,
but the corners of this inner man
still wait in shielded tent.

 

i have filled the glasses and poured the wine
still
no intoxication satisfies.

 

i have bought and bought and bought and bought
always more than what was planned
to give to give to give
to get;

and all-consuming consumer fire’s flames
endlessly are fanned.

with no riches left
to warm one’s self by.

 

only once

 

when i sung the hymn that somber welcomes,
did my soul budge
into your presence,
and was briefly lit up
like an agate, caught by the sun
that peeped between the rain clouds,
and made me

– radiate –

 

oh what rich waves
of the earth
are stained
upon our skins!

 

there is no room at the inn.

but please,

please,

 

come anyway.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

BRAID

 

∴

 

change is a strange companion.

are we changing
or changing back?

or is it a constant braiding
of all that was
and all that is to come,

overlapping
and twisting

in the uncomfortable epiphanies
that occur

when you come out from under one thing,
just to pass and curl
under another?

 

but moving days
make for long braids:

beautiful,

variegated,

and strong.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

WHITE

∴

when the sun rose up
at the start of new seasons,
it was not shielded by rock
nor veiled by the cloud.

it rose like the skin of a peach
that purpled to blue,
and then burst
in round, boundary-less rays.

it shot into winter
like hope
into one
who’d forgotten.

and everything else

went white.

 

the thin and brittle
blades of green grass-

white.

 

the gnarled branch
of rose hips and thorn-

white.

 

the smooth, newly-dug bed,
where the tulip bulbs sleep-

white.

 

the clay
that looked the same
as stone,
that looked the same
as gravel,
that looked the same
as hay,
that looked the same
as the reeds and cattails
that bent low-

white.

 

and all that white
reflected back

a dull and smokey-matte mirror

to the sun:

 

oh,
what your rising
has done.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

SHE

∴

 

i still look for her sometimes,
in the way you look for words
to come out of howling winds,
straining for her voice carried thereupon.

 

i will stare out of clean windows
at mounds of fresh dirt
that fade from black to brown
in fall’s herald flurries,
and know that her bones
are buried in that dirt, too.

 

her fingers,
the birch trees,
scraggled and bare,
stretch up from the earth,
reaching always,
in arthritic branch,
toward heaven.

 

her hair is the tall, green grass,
then gold,
then yellow,
then flat upon the earth,
uncombed and wind-whipped,
the way a wild woman wears it.

her fragrance is in the pine
that never fades.

 

her tears are the droplets that ride on rapids hidden,
where the iced over edges of the creek,
collect snow or make mirrors,

but, do not be fooled.

there is a current under there,
made of all the tears she ever shed
and sheds still,
like glass wishes.

 

i still look for her,
in the way one looks for her,
hopeless and happy
and aware.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

FAR SIDES OF THE MOON

∴

 

i dreamed of a sage
and met him in the wood.

what am i to do?
i asked.
who am i to be?

 

“be wise enough
to know the truth.
be brave enough
to say it.”

 

but the truth,
i said,
will hurt.

 

“the truth,”
he replied,
“hurts anyway,
without utterance;

it is felt
like temperature
and shared by all.

 

better to name a thing.

 

you will find,
my love,
that once truth bears a tag,
it too, will rebel
like all owned things do,
and reveal its shape and color
and show you all the sides of itself,
that are as true as truth itself,
but deeper
and unlit

like the far side of the moon.”

 

i see
i said,

 

but he was gone
and the leaves rustled
in his stead.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

BREATHE IN ME

∴

I don’t pay much mind
to the moon anymore;
her light shows the shadows too well.

Nor have I went walking in the wind.

I am tight
in my garments
in doors.

 

But sometimes,
when sun burns through

the
low,

hanging,

grey,

clouds,

and lights up snow flurries
like a flock of fireflies,

 

when all the dull brown grass
momentarily flares up in gold
and glistens like hair –

long, flowing hair,
as I used to let it –

 

when I see the branch
on the tree
that will not loose her leaf,

 

I think of all that changed me,
and brought me here,

and briefly,

allow that breath

to breathe in me,

again.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

ONCE YOU’VE SEEN A UNICORN

∴

Once you’ve seen a unicorn,
your life will become a series of scans
across the horizon,

searching for the moving white form
that glints
out of the browned foliage
and dormancy of hibernating life.

 

If there’s a unicorn in your midst,
you might feed
and passively watch her from windows,
but not go near,
for fear our clumsiness and clamor –
our sizable mistakes –
would scare her away.

 

You might hunt her
and hang the skin
as a declaration of victory over such a mystery.

Sometimes it is easier to kill
than to sustain the pain
of beauty we cannot keep.

 

You might stare right at her,
and look away –

sure that unicorns
do not exist.

 

Once you’ve seen a unicorn,
though,

you might wait in the fields,

to become part of the grasses,
to breathe with the dirt,
to melt like the rain,
to burn in the wildfires
that pry petrified pine cones
and let the seeds fall out.

 

You might keep an apple in your pocket
as an act of faith,

 

and you just might –

out there –

see her again.

∴

 

 

---

 

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THE CASTLES ARE CALLING

∴

 

The castles are calling –

mansions –

mansions –

within the mind –

that muddle amongst the divertissements

we mask as work and

higher education.

 

It is all so high

as to keep our heads

from grasping the body,

and farther still,

the soul.

 

The castles are calling –

wee, cloistered rooms

that expand –

and expand –

into worlds.

 

Brave the travelers be

who embark against the tide,

who stalwartly inward stride,

pulling mightily

against the outward ebb.

 

 

I see the light on water changing.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

BRIDGES

∴

I had no boards
to build the bridge across.

I had no stones
to fill the chasm up between.

I had no song
to sing across the space
for the wind stole it
to express its own sorrow,
and my strings
were wound in stillness.

I had no wealth
to buy the ticket to cross.

I had no courage
with which to jump.

 

I had
and have only
words.

 

Little words
that together,
assemble their simple prayers –

love

l

e

t

t

e

r

s

beaded
on a string

 

– so slow in coming,
and dropping like echoes
from the beaks of birds
as they pass you
overhead.

 

The distance is great between us
but the gaze never ceases
and small, smiling words
are still sent
to the outer-reaches:

can you hear,

can you hear,

can you hear?

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

I AM WITHIN

∴

I wake unto a cold and whited ground.

Resurrected, yes, perhaps,

but cold,

as if the blood holds,

waiting in each vein like a stallion at the gate

who is cautious, even,

of its speed.

 

Some mornings are grey,

and the pre-historic calls

of sand hill cranes

echo against the ceiling of cloud

as if to say,

go south and away

go south and away.

the wind here is sharp,

and real is not always right.

 

But like a fool,

I grab the thick self,

that like a parka

dons and morphs

and seals a second skin,

and says

and says again,

I am within.

I am within.

∴

 

 

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