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Brancacci Chapel

Young Masaccio died before
his paint had dried, but
his time-battered fresco tells all:
how man in the midst of figs and wine
reaches for the whole banquet
and loses all but the crumbs,
which taste like poison.
 
Their sin is fresh; the doors of Paradise
slam while heel still crosses the threshold,
driven out by the upraised sword
of a crimson-winged messenger of God
who points their way to a world of dust.
His flowing garment billows
around their nakedness.
 

After the fact

I know you by the space
you leave empty.

I draw lines in the air
where the roof used to be.

I wait for you, Lord,
like a mailbox for a letter.

The grass still wonders
how the ground got there.

November funeral

(In memoriam, Roger Lundin, 1949–2015)

Outside the year’s first snow means crashes, spin-
outs, brutal shock to unprotected skin,
a harbinger of winter’s dreary night.

Inside is peace as through translucent panes
we view a world grown still where silence reigns
and trees are finely etched in tender light.

Deep under brutal, surging waves of grief
wild rushing waters pound with no relief
the unprotected bark of life capsized.

Dull reader

Dear reader, when your readers seem dull
as dusk, be patient and recall
that place you must have skimmed in Paul
a dozen times, and never noticed at all.

Excess

Spring in the garden edge, a periwinkle maze—
O Lord of spill and swell.       I will not disappoint
you now, he says; I’ve honed your cell’s repairs.

The human ware is slippery in our hands; an ankle
twists, breaks on a granite ledge; joint
failure of a stone and heel, the puddled stairs . . .

And so, God digs into his resurrection—
a funny rib and tooth, a good and solid shoulder:
the hidden measure of largesse.

Imagine, in a yard, another bone to spare; imagine—

Aubade

Sometimes, certain mornings, we are born again,
our feet traveling the floor new feet, new floor,
our windows watching us as we cat-stretch, all new

to see our yard staring, blossoming,
these flowers we newly planted yesterday
more wide-eyed than when we put them to bed.

We’ve never seen such hue regard the sky,
every impatiens plant’s uplifted head
jubilant, defiant, red, on red, on red.

After such streaming light comes to our hands
like stigmata to the saints, we shower and wait,
the old terror, our familiar, on its way—