And so I left those troubles
like a gray bitter snowstorm,
spinning but then
digging and gaining traction,
passing slowly through the drifts and pelting
(headlights full of the past),
driving knowing if I drove far enough
there’d be an end to it,
the white line again,
daylight
and a first inkling of why
Light can be rich like butter –
and whiskey, too, like toffee.
When it is you’ll see, everything you see
is everything warm and smooth.
Trucks will head home for the
holidays, and wreaths will have
arrived to adorn doors
and spin like the sun at Fatima.
For those who would pass through
the hoop and the door, the tree awaits,
hoisting its star, a princely, tinsely
medal for the savior.
Rocks and thorns got wind of it,
the city council,
the zoning commission –
everyone up in arms.
Who was this man,
and what would come
of what he’d sow?
Two wrongs don’t make a right,
but two negatives
do make a positive.
Go figure.
Walk in the light,
but God also made the night,
so yeah, Hello?!
We’ve got to get back to the Garden,
but can’t because history is linear.
Great!
I’m gonna put it all in a bag and shake it,
and see what comes out.
Prob’ly a calico cat.
A member of parliament proposed
that when we’re ready, when we’re ripe,
we might have another do us in.
All we’ll need is a
“durable,
well-considered,
intrinsic
death wish.”
Serving us will be the
“end-of-life facilitator,”
a fully-equipped and professionally-trained
practitioner of the art of the new humane.
We’ll have to be 75, of course,
and there’ll be meetings involved –
bureaucracy will have its day –
but wish we may and dream we might:
the government will give us night!
The needs of the needy
swallow our prayers,
piling up faster
than pleas can be sung
Everyone everywhere
always wants to know
You’ve lit me and I’ll go,
but take my time as I do.
Your having me is me having you.
That I’m gone when you’re done
is you all the more.
How could I not live in this world
where I speak to the dead and
they speak to me, and intercede –
if I would, if I pray –
even if I never knew them?
How could I not sign on for angels
and parted seas and tents in the desert,
and the last prophet who was the greatest,
but less than every child still to come?
How could I not want every chance repeatedly
to see and forgive – to tap out deeds of love
and be propped up – to pick up my mat and
soar, dammit, in a sky of mercy?!
I could not not turn to you
or live in any other world.
This is the world,
and I claim it.
