(my oh so covetous heart)

my oh so covetous heart

longs only after you

only after it’s awakened

again and again

all atremble

with memory’s rumble

and headlong fall

Readings

Write down the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. – Habakkuk 2:2

I remember the last time

this happened. Will we learn

how to be patient, or anxious,

scry all manner of surfaces,

the eye flickering upon

multiple screens flickering

their parade of facts

and opinions spinning

across time; what

history has to tell us

or what we might tell

history to tell us we are

reasonably unsure or

unreasonably sure,

and will we plunge blindly

into our certainties, all

huff and puff and plunder?

Will we empty the future,

remove the furniture

from all the rooms

we used to fill

with our bodies,

the dishes and the cutlery,

household goods, clothes?

Will we be left naked

and huddled in the square?

Will we build memorials

for the ones we lost,

invent new ceremonies

to commemorate the dead

and assuage our shame?

Will it matter?

There will be choices

of erasures.

We will wipe

our faces clean.

We will sit in silence,

Made dumb by our grief,

undone by our pride,

or someone else’s.

We will be told that

history teaches us nothing,

or maybe history teaches us

how to resist.

If only we knew where to look.

If only we had raised our voice.

If only we had looked up

from our screens

and seen each other,

and bound ourselves

to human need,

and let our hearts be moved,

until we moved.

sand

once again we find ourselves

at the end of words.

we sit by the shore,

or walk along it;

listen for birdsong

but receive instead

the gulls’ insistence.

waves crest and crash

and roll and foam

and deposit more

sand, rubbed smooth

by pressure and repetition.

perhaps a grain is forced

into a clam, alchemically

becoming a pearl.

perhaps precious;

or else a curiosity,

until it is snatched

from its fleshly bed

and offered as gift

or commodity

like words –

an irritation

in their ubiquity

or their absence;

how they scour the skin,

reveal the pinker tissue

beneath, thrown into relief

by their careful arrangements:

adornments or adorations.

shadows

I wish I had more to say 
about loss and grief, 
that I could convince you 
they didn’t suffer, 
they’re in a better place 
now, that they’re gone 
but not forgotten.  
The photographs 
will never be replaced,  
future plans  
never made, holidays 
and vacations kept 
separate. The children 
will never know each 
other, what those late 
night conversations 
meant to us both, 
what dreams dreamt. 
We may never see 
each other again. 
What would it take 
to move past 
all this waiting, 
what gesture 
would release us? 
I have nothing 
to gift you: 
no flowers, no 
book or poems, 
no letter scrawled 
in broken script, 
a tear-filled hello, 
abject apologies, 
a swift defense, 
repentance real 
or feigned. Weakness 
is my greatest fault. 
Consider this 
a gauntlet thrown.

confession

so is this when the new habit begins? 
has something yet changed? 
i keep waiting for a letter in the mail, 
a phone call from a friend, 
emails from relatives, 
anything from my father. 

distances are still distances. 
words remains fragile things. 
i still don’t regret the arguments. 
i regret we never found a conclusion. 

i still have things to say 
but i do not think you will hear them. 
i wish you would hear them. 
i wish there was a way to bring them to you.