NEVERTHELESS, ¤ ¤ ¤ UNTIL LIGHT GROWS OLD ¤ ¤ ¤ WHERE GRACE BEGINS ¤ ¤ ¤ SPROUTING ORNAMENTS
she is thankful for small miracles,
the sky flaunting its dazzle,
and days tall as promise.
She's lost track of the alphabet,
but someone will read aloud to her
or chant a litany of sounds,
bluer than air
cleaner than numbers
A tongue she's never learned,
a voice she's never heard
but something she has known all our lives.
The hours lie stored in linen,
and she's pearled for one, last
migration. Along the way, people
die for the smallest reasons.
Nevertheless,
her world begins inside the green
century. She savors the earth and
travels the furrowed planet.
Like nocturnal animals, she is
always there. Shadows
beckon ahead. She grows large
and drinks the wind.
Nevertheless,
she waits for laughter,
a sky drunk with sunlight,
and after the sudden dark
when earth turns to air,
she greets the final stun of silence.
Last night we slept between two winds
under a ripe moon
on the other side of nowhere until
thin skeins of dawn reveal
a white room, a mirror,
round like the mouth of a child.
Outside the morning window,
summer's yellow pollen
whirls below a whitewashed sky.
In the scald of afternoon, we learn
the dead man's float and one of us
tries flight. The first whiff
of autumn is the smell of cut wood
under a rough palm, fruit ripening
into scent, and everything is
musk, silk, wordless smiles.
As air turns to spice, we savor
apricot desire until light grows
old and the weather vane grinds
slowly on its swivel. It's the dead
season where emptiness grows
feet and there's only
one demon in the attic
one death in the town ---and ah
we still mourn Pavlova,
her touch of calculus and honey,
a breathless moment in our lives.
Her death so light,
we held it in the palm
of our hands.
We're one hour lost
and one day thinner,
alone in the middle of America.
the scarred moon hangs overhead
moss spreads underfoot
vines multiply moment by moment
pulling her into the undergrowth
until shadows shrink at the first light
and small animals cry "yes" and
again "yes"
she moves into morning hours
blank as the names of the unborn
and opens her hands
as if to touch spring's lush palette
the rinsed body of earth
and every morning is childhood's mapless country
raw and splendid
walking barefoot in the wash of sunrise
feeling the blood's ascension
and her own sweet pulp clear veins and ripened skin
she hears the summer glories
the birds shrill necessities
cadenzas ardent and unending
all through midsummer's extravagance
and in August heat
things slow becoming still
as if earth stopped to take a breath
at that moment she descends into hunger
before moving toward something certain
like the long swim into the sea
toward the silence of absolute light
she made a party
for everyone we knew
and those we never knew
drank new wine
ate fruit
out of season
and sat on the ground
the smell of damp
rising rich between her knees
and remembered
everything we'd done
or imagined
told stories of a woman
who wore her flesh
like armor
of a child who
swallowed its reflection
in the mirror
of a man
whose clothes
smelled like travel
we talked
to the sound
of baroque violins
walked into rooms
our heads
sprouting ornaments
and later
went back to doing
what she always did
