Dark Bird

Loneliness is a curious bedfellow

crawling between blankets

when the night is pale

his cold edges

encircling

how I have shivered

at this touch.

But today I turned

to offer my hand

and asked what he had to teach me.

I let him carry me to my knees.

In the moonlight

he grew slim

and stood before me as a mirror

his void reflected back

this wide-eyed gaze

this warm skin

the film of breath upon the glass

alive with longing

Slowly he became a bird

of darkness

hovering above my hands

I kissed it softly

cradling it like a beloved child

my lips on cold feathers

gloriously alive

I have not yet been claimed by death.

It spread its wings before me

until they became a

dark doorway into the

house of joy.

Lent

(Written on Ash Wednesday two years ago.  What began as a lament for a girl begging on the streets of Mumbai and became also a lament for the little girl within me.)

Little girl, who peers through smears of soot

which blur and run in the rain,

this lament is for you.

Life once fluttered around your shoulders

shimmered as it nested in your hair

chirping and humming as the air filled with light.

It lies broken now beneath the earth.

I too, have been marked with ashes

the dust of ancient hosannas

and so we meet death in each other's eyes.

Beneath the shroud of water and cloud

the throaty wail begins.

This lament is for you.

For you behind the windowpane

with prickling skin and ragged palms

as raindrops melt the waxen glass

you who have no name.

Behind this jail of ashen skin

we strain to hear the rooftops wail

in the dusky moments before breath

we wait for the creak of footsteps on the stair

for the rustle and murmur from corners of the room

for the ancient words that light the air

“Talitha Koum! Little girl, get up!

You no longer dwell in the cold, dark places

the death-fumed spaces

You are named in to life!

Exhale the stale air of the tomb,

you are fresh and new! Get up!”

But today the stench of decay

hangs in the folds of cloth

as my palm meets yours across the glass

we are blue-lipped with death

we have not yet learned to breathe

Let the Naming begin.

Walking the Dog in the Moonlight

His breath exhales like a steam engine

into the clear darkness

chugging along this gravel track

intent on a scent imprinted on the road

fully given over to the mystery

of those who came before.

The stars gleam haughtily from their perch

like birds of prey

coolly observing our shadows

cast by the sickled moon.

My nose turns up, straining

to catch the scent of things to come.

We pause where the road bends beneath

the ash tree

its silhouette a paper cutout

against the moonlit barn.

And I wonder about Abraham

twenty years after that night, 

clinging to a promise

grown paper-thin with time

crying at the stars

“How long, O Lord?”

Until, perhaps, he did not cry out at all

but only stood bent and still

listening to the deep hum of nothing,

breath swirling away from the

goat-skinned flaps of his tent.

Morning Walk

I stumbled today

in my own footprints

embedded in the morning path

I have daily walked

with half-closed eyes

the world a peripheral blur

and with my hands in the earth

a spider's lacy web

drew my eyes up to the trees

she crocheted herself, speckled

across the trail

alluring me through her doorway of mindfulness,

of beauty transient

on my knees

the soft, white underbelly

of a thousand leaves

invited me to honor each luminous vein

and through the green-gray trunks

a fawn stilt-walked

among the milkweed

the thick sheet of haze

parted

and the blue hills rolled on

and on

Oh, daily, Lord

turn these downcast eyes to You

and all your faces.

Poem of the...fortnight?

If there is anything redemptive about August in Virginia, it's the abundance of things fresh and crips from the vine/bush/tree.  Today at lunch I ate entirely too many cherries and remembered this poem, written last summer during cherry season.  Thought I would share one of the things that helps me survive the southern summer!

The Orchard

Leaves of light flank the painted mountains

like ladder rungs under the press of sky

in the weight of morning we walk the dusty road.

The world is cool beneath the branches of the cherry tree

limbs trembling with vermillion orbs

that glow like bulbs and lay hot in the palm

the electric sun longs to bake the flesh into

crisp pies and sticky jams

The earth is good. It slakes our thirst

with taut fruits and foamy soil

we are our true selves as sweetness

runs down our chins and stains our fingernails

The flies buzz their hallelujahs

around our ears

and old women in scarves

hold fistfulls of cherries and chuckle

in a language we do not know.

Poem of the Day

Carpet

I saw once in Jaipur an upper room

filled with rows of boys

embroidering saris

stretched taut on open frames

kneeling

their eyes squinting close as the golden thread

vanished and appeared in the silk.

In the room below, a wiry man

flung water from buckets over

freshly-woven carpet.

Whiskered, shirtless,

he brushed the water with

a bundle of reeds

to open the fibers.

Vibrant blues and crimsons

bloomed through the soap suds

with each swishing stroke.

The factory owner surveyed his kingdom

with knees spread wide

lauding the workmanship

driving a bargain

dressing the floors of my home.

His belly ballooned over its

gleaming belt buckle

oiled shoes two-stepping

back from the sludge.

The man with the reeds

bent sharply at the waist

peering closely at the golden weave

refusing to lift his eyes.

Poem of the Day

In honor of my favorite time of day...

Compline

Sleep
is falling
off the bright
ledge of the world
into the arms
of God.