The loneliness of their long whistles,
the sound full of their whiteness,
even in community they are lonely,
miles of loneliness across the rain-
beaten water as they have come to overwinter,
to fly the gray distances from there to here,
to be the wings of longing, to plumb
the sky and sea, landing and leaving
like arrows from the bow of God,
the air crying for love of swans.
There’s no such thing as free will and that’s bad, or so says / Stephen Cave in The Atlantic.
One more time, Brother Albion draws
the tank-air through his oxygen hose
and rubber mask. He preaches, shape us
on the potter’s wheel, he grunts,
he creaks like a rusty gate.
Mansions there, glorified bodies—ah.
He does that for you, you lean forward,
you amen, his words are as honeycomb,
as morels you reach for in the rich damp
of a decaying log. One more time,
the spirit gives him wind.
That July I headed in my rental car
to see the eerie tall stone fuchsia/orange/
and purple hoodoos. Soon the boulders
blazed up, sky poured golden fire that singed
my skin, made my head ache.
The overloaded motor
whimpered, smoked, and died. Nothing human
for a hundred miles.
When the rattler bit Tom, our great mule
whinnied in terror and his legs began shaking
into a death dance as he fought going down
and my big brother Ronnie and I slid off his
back, and he killed the snake. We had ridden
Tom down to our back forty to pick a gunny
sack of fresh green corn at our acreage
on the Carolina side of the Savannah River.
Rote prayers like coins imagined fumble
toward the slot in our both dumb and blind
vending machine theology.
We pray them round; mumble mumble.
What size had You in mind?
What denomination makes doxology
enough that You might grant our wish?
I wish I knew
maker of all precious metals
multiplier of the loaves and fish
and lifter of each morning’s dew
who made the jewelweed soothe the nettles’
They say: “These are useless sacrifices. These men will perish, but the
structure of life will remain the same.” Even thus, I think, people spoke
of the uselessness of Christ’s sacrifice and of the sacrifices of all
the martyrs for the sake of the truth. —Leo Tolstoy
He kept coming back, hissing in the trees,
Whispering sly seductions, making me think
Life would be sweeter if I yielded to his pleas.
Adam grew dull, the children over the brink,
I was his first, he said, “Keep reaching out to take
Fruit flushed with ripeness, you are getting old.”
Age drooped before me, remote and bleak,
I longed to taste it, once again be bold.
The little treaties that I made with him
Did nothing, ink spelling out sorrow, pain,
Betrayals to our flesh, hurt to the brim,
that he scalds in the speckled canner,
drives to the coin laundry for the dryers
(even the threadbare can be soft again).
That she irons, pats, folds with lavender.
That they carry into church before the people arrive
and stack on the front bench—for footwashings,
for draping on the bare skin of the spirit-slain,
hairy ankles, varicose calves.
That she lifts from the floor
(scattered heaps after the people leave)
and lowers into the basket he holds.