Cloister clock
Nights of faith
Well, you have your pillow of stone and
the hip thrown out,
the light in Antony’s cave,
Joseph’s twisting,
Joan’s gloaming,
and a river flowing past
the dead in the ground.
Secret message
Our neighbors’ tree has died
It seems ominous, an omen.
Whither the leaves, whither the wood?
Goes all, goes all, in this final final fall!
Five after eight
Traversal
My dad saw Aunt Bess
In a dream
walking with a stick
on a mountaintop.
“She spoke with the dead,”
he said.
“Just like me.”
“That makes three,”
Janke said,
“for you do too.”
And yes, I guess it’s true.
I’ve gathered up the spiritual bullets at least
Snatched from the air what was headed
your and my way, ensnaring and melting
them into the ghostly ploughshare I use
to prepare this common ground
Negotiation
Is in my heart a dam
Would God but break it down
Utrecht Journal 