On the mountain, it’s not necessary to say anything—
to decide what you and I might become.
Here the sun sets for only a moment,
thick cloud of fire and ash
all the oranges and reds we haven’t invented yet—
and the sound of the wind too loud
for human ears to hear.
But holy the smoke, the quaking, the desire
to ascend—to hear the voice that speaks only
in silence.
You can’t paint this, though you will try—
the canvas and birds—the words that are meant to hint,
I hold your silence like a small round stone, it goes with me wherever I go.
Waking, I wear it: its bounce on my breast a second pulse, call and response
of heart aching, rhythm breaking, the body’s drum beaten from both sides.
Or sometimes I clench its stone-cold sphere in the pit of my palm where it
steals my warmth. Little Slate Sun, Black-Hole-Born-in-Fire, feed on me.
It was midnight when we saw them,
such unexpected bright abundance,
we thought at first we must be dreaming,
the night itself lit from within as if
the Milky Way had fallen, a multitude
of dancing stars illuminating rain-soaked
grass, the host of heaven come to earth,
beckoning, or so it seemed; and I remember
how it felt to rise, submerge, to enter in
that sea of luscious liquid dark, our arms
outstretched as if to swim winged waves
of incandescent light, becoming one with
It’s early Friday.
Drivers rush east and west along route 470
while some of us are caught
at screens of activity in our motel lobby.
We carry out our rituals of beginning day,
while You, in the thick of massive inattention,
continue turning earth
within the sun’s sphere.
You do this in spite of lack of interest
and soundlessly,
knowing, just as we do from the chatty broadcasts,
that clouds are set for rain today.
Nearly all animals produce their own vitamin C, but we can’t.
We undertake every part of the process except, inexplicably,
the last step, the production of a single enzyme. —Bill Bryson
After however
many steps to manufacture
our own vitamin
C, we
stop. I could imagine
in that some
Burst my bubble, Lord, for through it
I see only distortions of neighbor.
And who, Lord, is my neighbor?
All I know is this sphere of iridescent protection.
I launch iridescent projections into lives I don’t know.
My bubble—a drug. I’m in no condition to love.
Hans Kung (1928–2021)
History, I repeat, will save us, if we honestly search for
Antidotes to restore our dying church. I’m spent.
No more catechesis, kerygma or impassioned speech left.
Straw? All straw? Maybe, but I refuse to accept the impending
Knell. Haven’t I too run the good race? Kept the faith
Under scathing scrutiny, escaped the ludicrous charges.
Now I endure the dark leap across. Eloi, eloi. Abba. You
Give me more time than I wanted. To study prayer. And pray.
A year since, I couldn’t find you—
“you,” that is, the hard bits,
the stardust and grit of you
left beneath the sparkleberry tree.
The find-a-grave app useless as memory,
the trail flooded, the guideposts
painted over.
It was terrible not to find you, terrible
until I did find you—
“you,” that is, your name
on the brass marker small as a leaf
in the end-up place
conserved for us.
Spit in the face,
dust on the head—
we dread
such tokens of disgrace
and our mortality.
But when love blends
the two, the clay
in your hands
is why
we live. Mud in the eye
is how we see.
The friendly cellist with a big heart, a long-time resident
of a neighboring town where I grew up, who received
bouquets from the flower shop where I trimmed roses,
said his favorite thing to do after returning from a trip
was grocery shopping, savoring the essentials of small life
away from the airports and applause: buying milk, fruit
like blessings of solace: bread, tea, local honey in a jar
slow, lovely as sarabandes, those songs without words
aired in isolation through the pandemic. After his dose,