Haiku II

roam the twilit road
lined with juniper halos
ever-gold porchlight

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.

December 18, 2012 // Snapshots

Nine-year-old princesses’ feet cascading downstairs to wake me;

two pairs of blue eyes amid clementine curls smiling, “good morning.”

 

Flashing lights in a rearview mirror syncopated with blood pressure;

I am imperfect; a file with my name on it is hidden in some dark room.

 

Silence broken by unpracticed fingers on piano, but I am home,

and my hands are at rest between the occidentals stumbling through Canon.

 

Barren branches crest the hill, glowing rust in the winter sunset.

I am alone viewing this looking-glass of a highway, lined in oak.

 

It gets dark so early here, with the lights in the tree possessing the

window frames – reflection or reality, does it matter so long as there’s beauty?

 

It’s cold but the windows are down because winter has crept into the air;

and I can smell hints of long months to come laden with ice and fireplaces.

 

The constellations shiver, but they are all the more clear for it;

They look in envy as my key slides into the lock and I am home.

Sweden, Far West

Sweden, far west –

where the lines intersect as they

quilt the globe. Solitude.

Something cold, like a child

born too early,

in December.

 

I am amidst the pine forests.

Have you felt the mountains

breathing between the trunks?

They whisper, Harsh winter.

 

My sister, a February child,

drives westward home.

We are winter’s children,

frost-kissed but rosy-cheeked –

like Christmas, only younger.

 

My finger traces a line on the globe:

February’s homeward journey.

Outside, summer grows old;

I am homesick for wintertide.

Agape

There are no windows here,

or, if you prefer, all are windows.

Continuous glass, crystal walls –

airy barriers between the inside and out.

 

Telephone, in the back room, by the lamp.

A new voice in the receiver;

sounding like Christmas when he was young.

 

(I am wholly undeveloped; my arms

are still reaching for the surface.)

I am glad I am not here alone.

 

Ice has been forming on the panes.

Outside it is winter, like a postcard

from family now living abroad.

I press my cheek against the glass,

if only to remind myself of their faces.

 

What are we if not a single body?

Who are we if not a bride?

When we’ve finally stepped outside,

bare feet in the melting snow, we’ll see,

there never were windows to begin with.

Outside is all we were,

all we’ll ever be.

A Year of Mornings

Sheets blue and lined by the impressions of raindrops on the window, hardly thick enough to keep out the cold. My skin tingles at the touch of the fabric and warm words whispered by a fleshless voice. Eyes open slowly, faintly; vision touching the walls illuminated by a sun grinning through clouds and rain. I could laugh at the stillness of the air here, behind the windows, when outside the wintry branches wave naked fists in the wind.

The pads of my feet aren’t calloused enough to ignore the spring of grass leaping into the sun. I bury my toes in the sponge of soil, tapping my fingers to the percussion of snapping roots. Looking up, I can’t help but to laugh with the chorus of new growth. Thick air born of bark and budding branches caresses me in a wordless expression of rejoicing and being.

I can trace the lines left behind the lights in the towns below me as they go out. A light here, to the east, goes out just as the hum of electricity bursts in a home, miles west of it – both homes lit by the same lines. Children laugh as fathers tell stories and believe that all is well. I lie in the grass beneath gathering clouds and let my clothes soak up last night’s rain, wondering when the voiceless whisper will speak again.