Two Poems

I Know Nothing About Sunday

Good Friday 

Smoke alarm, you rouse me 
to the dark, my thoughts 
like crowds outside my door. 

Naked in bed, the regiment's voices 
ring my head 
with panicked barbs.

Then silence. 
Not one of our children woke. 
A red light flickers alone.

Under it, I sit, 
lamenting the ways 
the system might be broken.

Staring up, they hung you so high.
I wait so long 
for each silent blink.

Holy Saturday

I wait so long
for each silent blink, some
kind of acknowledgment: wind
reversing to northwest,
the sun rising twice its size.
Since the apple trees
bud normally, is all
okay? No one can fathom
what God is doing. Each room
blooming with tumbling
piles, all the papers and designs
from our make-believe, while we
wait for life to begin again.
I don’t know a thing
about Sunday, but last night I couldn’t
sleep. My tongue raw, picking at my teeth.
The gray malaise has rubbed me dry. 
Now is wild with clamor and quiet.
I want neither, and hope
for both. Some days I am not sure 
if the sun will even rise. 
Tonight I’m going outside
to see if the horizon clears 
and shrinks into pinpricks of light, 
or whether the stone cold clouds
will stand guard over
the sky’s immensity.

Spirit

rhododendron shadows
our guide ahead in the dew
dampening our soles
a bark of hope floats
aimless and virginal perhaps
cairns hide beneath the waterfall
broken slate softened by the river
continuing the same direction
belief makes everything
better a fish taken out of the stream
is not without consolation
the rainbow trout planted
with a pumpkin seed
in its open mouth
we need to be buried
to be anything more
than we are
Jesus said I made this
thicket of blackberry and chickweed
only wild animals devour it
only this moment
is life this dangerous
black bear with lethargic claws
rolls over in my heart
I want to heal
when you want
to walk through the brambles
and gather berries
take basketfuls down
to the village where they don’t know
the origins of the wind
circling their shambled streets
but the air is not gasping
and each step finds a stone