Fourth Sunday of Epiphany

I am told to breathe

to the rhythm of a hammer and anvil

like a clock clanging not quite

in waking nor wholly in dreams.

 

Kneeling. Prayerful hands pleading

too loudly, the second hand resounding

            in the silence. Kneeling

 

here on a thinly carpeted, unforgiving floor,

past and future, ancient and unborn

impugn upon the present, disrupting

the tempo of the march of saints.

            I almost miss it.

 

I crumple the epiphany and

thrust it into a pocket

            and pretend

 

that truth is in the silence,

rather than creased and wrinkled,

desecrated in the lining of my jeans.

 

But if I continue striving to remain static,

in the end I’ll enter glory an unfinished statue.

Forever giving, never added to;

a textureless face with insufficient features painted

            on like wood-grain linoleum.

 

We sense it in the clanging and cringe.

“Seek quietude,” the billboards bray.

We follow, until on a quiet Sunday afternoon

we empty our pockets in the wash

to find a pallid epiphany washed out

            with the loose change.

Walk in the Morning Rain

An archer steps still to the edge of the ferns;

arrowheads barely piercing the mist.

It is a silent moment when a heart stops beating.

Ferns dip their head in quiet assent, while

the mist falls disinterestedly on.

 

We retrace the archer’s steps as the days pass.

We run our fingers along the papery bark

of the evergreens, remembering.

 

Songless sparrows look on as we plunge

our hands into the wet soil where she last lay,

hoping to feel her last heartbeat.

Hoping to hear the last melody of our

Godforsaken siren.

And still the ferns creep closer to her grave.