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El Niño winter. January. Geese
Fly high above this still suburban street,
So high I hear their cries, then have to strain
To see them—not a V—dark flecks of ink
Bunched on a gray construction paper sky.
They’re indistinct, seemingly in distress,
Moving as bubbles move in boiling water,
And getting nowhere. Honking wildly, they
Appear to have encountered unawares
Some mortal and invisible enemy.
I can’t help but admire their stamina.
Minutes go by. The geese keep grappling with

The third sage brought us myrrh for his mortal flesh
Wrapped up in strips of cloth to ward off the stink
Cadavers make in the grave after death,
Harbingers for my son, unlikely king.
Bitter its fragrance, filling that house of birth.
The odor of death mixing in with old perfume,
Graves dug into the side of humble earth.
Later inside an unused marble room
Swaddled in linen, ready for us to lave
His familiar limbs with costly oils
The scents, omens the third wise man gave
Now rising up from Eden’s garden soil,

Let goods and kindred go.

Three days before
death closed in,
dear one,
I visited your bedside.
You still refused
to let me say goodbye.
Now it’s Easter
twelve years later,
and I’m listening
to the song
they played at your funeral:
Alleluia, the great storm is over.
My throat still closes
at the sound of it.

Though my hearing is never
acute enough to detect
the soft script of the fly’s footfalls
as it dances on the window,
and cleans its wings with its
hind legs, the glass knows. The air
records it in a single instant,
irreversible.

Like my mother’s voice when she
spoke harshly. The whisper of
small roughage, and only crumbs
left on the table between us.

Where are the days
especially the six
that gave us light and dark
that we might lose sight
only to see
the waters divide
above and here
to split
and birth
all manner of green
and growth
that we
not yet
might eat
of our work
and measure time
by planets moon
and sun stars blinding
as fish and fowl
took to swim and flight
in fear of all
to come upon land
four legged and more
watching waiting
for the one of two
and arms

The let down, my milk coming in, the shepherds gone,
Music like silver impressed on the skies above
Here in this infant, the tempter’s curse undone,
Divinity now lying in the rough—
A stable, the friendly beasts, our flesh like theirs.
Young as a bud, I pondered what this meant:
The baby in my arms, God unawares
Rooting around to find my virgin breast
A wonder every newborn mother knows
Feeling his perfect form growing from me
Made in my image, fresh as a summer rose
It happened in me, without me, stunned, I could see

There was a day I learned that it meant
to be part of God’s ecstasy of giving.

That was when I learned I had no idea what
giving was. I knew only exchange, only taking.

The cross, faith? Yes, but let me tell you first—
I had known love, I had faith, extravagant. Yet

not only had I never given, I had never loved.
And that Giving wanted to be my sap, my blood.

Don’t imagine I mean something exalted. Nor
was this anything to do with improving me.