Floating particles of fragrance
Signal my attention
As I perceive whispered prayers
Like strings of an instrument
Fashioned from voices
That reveal Christ's passion
For tenderness

    ASHES

    Gulls swoop
    Like flying scrimshaw
    Sliding on
    Ash-tipped wings,
    Feather-edged driftwood,
    Grey moon
    Eclipsed down
    To its wink-white breast
    Soft in the winter's
    Night sky

    Gulls soar daily
    Smooth as ivory needles
    Stringing days
    Into years
    Of chalcedony beads
    Fingering Advent, Lent, Easter.


    REMEMBERING

    Three-toed clouds queued and hovered
    While I piled the car with
    Memorabilia
    Too sacred to sell.
    A poem by my great-grandmother
    About Kansas and alfalfa
    Beside me sat my Mother
    Holding pictures of my children
    Rattling in frames
    On a tear-stained pillow.
    In the backseat a lamp,
    A blue silk foot stool and
    Photo portraits of me
    Looking into now
    Typing in dark glasses
    To bear the light.


    WHY

    O, Lord, do You ordain
    That we should crush You
    To be one with You
    Must You endure destruction
    After consecration
    To fulfill oblation
    Let me not be the cause of more pain
    How can I be Your gentle dove of love
    And yet trample You behind my open lips


    ONE FEATHER

    One feather is torn
    My boy, my
    Inimitable boy
    Taken like a down quill
    From my roosting breast
    A ragged hole
    Filled with emptiness


    GRIEF

    Grief screams
    Where is my love
    My darling one
    My baby

    In the end
    It submits to love
    Crushed by
    Barefooted hope


    DECEMBER

    Dark gray
    Heavy
    The color of wartime
    Ashes
    Ancient debris
    Fills the belly
    Of a winter hung
    Pity flung
    Moon
    Over a house gutted
    With Christmas longing


    MARINA SKY

    The morning stretches
    Seamless as an egg
    Damp air breaks cool
    Across my face

    As impertinent reminders
    Of the absent yolk
    Intrude on my metaphor
    Like single poppies
    Among weeds

    Stray eucalyptus leaves
    Curve in quiet affinity
    With the concrete sidewalk
    I think of stable straw

    Mary would have been
    Five months with child by now
    I share that dark space
    Waiting to be born

    If I could crack open
    A piece of sky
    Would the edges crowd with doves?
    Would they watch the blue
    Pour through like liquid
    Coming to fill my heart?


    NIGHT CORNERS

    Ragged edges of night
    Wedge and jam into corners of my room
    Stubborn, sullen
    Persistent in assaulting silence

    How dare you crowd me
    With piled up sins
    In the same room where epiphany trembles
    Like aspen leaves

    In the morning
    A moth flicks dust
    On last night's gloom


    PILGRIM CRANE

    Formation, like a paper crane
    creased and flattened,
    hid my light,
    it folded over, out of sight,
    only absence remained
    rough textured, cold
    turned over, bent, pushed, hurt.
    Shadows gathered in places that used to shine.
    I want to retreat,
    I want to reform,
    opposing corners
    quick, take cover!
    I'll never be the same,
    "Origami!"
    Like a cry for help in crane.
    Don't leave me familiar self,
    I...