Dream of the Beloved Companion

Blue tones

An accident of light

Penetrating the sepulchral bronze

Just before dawn

On a night that seemed unending.

I thought the light had broken through

But it was Sabbath still

Unbroken by angels

Rolling back the stone.

Be still and wait

Whispered my too eager heart

As I put down the perfume and the herbs

As I leaned against an olive tree

And slept.

2:30 PM on Good Friday

On Good Friday afternoon I crocheted a shawl

During the dying, and listened

To the rasping breaths

Of a labor duplicated around the world

Everywhere. But here

At the epicenter of all being

Echoed every death from time’s beginning

To the end, the expansion

And contraction of these lungs,

Alpha and Omega of the pulsing

Universe.

I twisted the yarn around the hook

And pulled the long strand through the loop

Hoping through all of this, at least

To end up with a shawl

That might provide some bit

Of comfort in the chill

Of that death which would

(Who could doubt it now?)

Come.

Wild Rosemary

The rosemary at the corner of the house is in bloom. It's wild where the rosemary blooms. The bee hides there. See her? Almost dead center--a black spot just left of a cluster of flowers that nature decorated with moss blown from the oak tree by the wind. I thought I had her when she hid in time between the opening of the shutter and its closing. She has her right to privacy, I suppose.

The rosemary, like all memory, is wild and full of bees. I'd say this is true especially where it grows thickest. Notice that here, around the corner, in such a graceful sweep towards the future nothing hides, and one wouldn't believe I'm such a careless gardener. I'm actually not a gardener at all. Even without intention I turn out to let the wild things be. And despite that, or because of it: a classic sweep of grace.

 

Wretched and Amazed (1st In A Series)

I said to my soul, Be still,

and let the dark come upon you

And it shall be the darkness of God.

T. S. Eliot

"East Coker"

You rose calm as the moon against the absolute dark. I watched from the corner of darkness, from the wall of nothingness. Safe there against what You might be.

Your face white as Buddha's smile. Innocence. Beauty. The Beloved.

You snaked towards me in a betrayal of all thought

In the contradiction of all love

In desiccation of the beautiful

Eyes closed, Smile undefiled,

Awful.

Your intention: to invade.

NO!

I scratched out at Your impassive face

To draw blood

To tear at the holy flesh

To stop with pain the divine rape

But I released Fire

The intolerable Gold.