She pummels the ground, rakes, hefts
foot on shovel, slices the earth.
Her trowel unburies the root systems
of grass, clover, wild strawberries
pitching runners. She dredges for taproots,
plucks out invasives, sifts
clumps of clay, culling the rue
wild to reseed itself even
in rock. Into loam she combs centipedes
and snails, braids topsoil with humus,
laces the plots of tilth with seeds,
knowing the split seams will shoot
Already they have begun to fade away,
having resigned themselves to the nearness of death
and its bad habit of haunting parish halls.
Praise their unshakable faith in the coffee line,
the laden buffet, the table of baked desserts,
the power of food to gentle back into living
all those who mourn, and all their awkward neighbors.
Some bit of the universe is made less wobbly
by these, and by this school-lunchroom agape—
these, with their thinning, over-permed white hair.
May they go to eternal rest in flowered aprons.
Walking through Hoofddorp in the evening dusk
I pass a row of houses, brick and square,
each with a large plate-glass window exposing
a neat and tidy living room inside.
I heard somewhere the Dutch don’t draw their shades,
don’t close their curtains, even at night.
They need to show they have nothing to hide.
A tissue paper wind sock of a fish
Conjured this poem about fishes.
A mold, or a handmade painted dish,
Imagined a seascape of wishes.
So here is your poem of a fish
Not of a fish, but about one. It vanishes
Into the waves from the hellish
Heat to a white-wine sauce, a sprig garnishes
The sea bass or the grouper, a knish
On the side, or better, butter varnishes
The fresh catch (this is becoming a niche
Poem) and everyone relishes
The hurricane that buffets me
seems to have You battered in its stream.
Scriptures that grounded or buoyed
are torn asunder and spiraling to sea.
Incongruous snippets mock my need.
Instead of stilling the storm,
they tatter; their ink begins to bleed
long serifs from “Shepherd” and Peace.”
“Repent,” “Accepted,” “Judgment,” and “Mire”
wear cloudy, inscrutable feet,
and the Shulamite’s keenest desire
is now to make the shadows flee.
But that’s the point, I think—
Your name, fragile in the fury
“God in God’s essence is totally unknowable.”
—Ruth Burrows
St. Thomas More believed
the tale told of the miraculous
thorn of Rhodes which bloomed
a fresh rose every Good Friday.
So what if it isn’t true?
Everyone lives by a story.
The important ones are,
at heart, dark, mysterious.
a villanelle
The middle path before me like a beam:
On one side nothing; on the other all.
To balance here is harder than it seems.
Take a step or two through greyish gleam.
Black and white on either side. I fall.
Mount again the middle path, the beam.
It’s narrow here. I hold to the regime.
The effort runs a bath of cortisol.
To balance here’s more stressful than it seems.
I should relax. To help avoid extremes,
A little snack, a little alcohol.
The middle path invites me like a beam.