11. skymeadow

waverings

a violet petal of violet | so gentle

and you can eat it | a small taste it has

almost sweet | it melts upon a tongue

water running | through stands of trees

th’water seems slow | in the photograph

how fast can it move | when it is not frozen?

clover growing in bunches | each flower

a bouquet | each individual flower

the field ends somewhere | but you don’t

want it to stop | we live on broken earth

we yearn for abundance | grace | a lack

of murder | the trees slender | and airy

light dapples in | dapples over everything

the ground moves from the light coming

through leaves | but you do not want to

in that space you can smell everything

and everything is living and dying at once

maybe that is how it should be | maybe

we make distinctions when we should

breathe in through our nostrils | and smell

the path is worn out of the earth | you tread

over it | dodging shadows | avoiding light

encumbered by both | the irreparable pain

of healing | damp earth | a warmth that’s

cool | the bower your only protection

from all that | all that there is | we know

the darkness well | it seeps into us

we cannot drain it away | it grows

in our hearts | we know we cannot have hearts

except for beating ones | the other hearts

are of the imagination | they form the essential

story we tell ourselves | that we may have

someday enough | of it | to break away

to care | to hold the hope of another

to breathe another’s breath | and live that

life | into us deeply enough | to heal

forgive | make human altars for redemption

but there is none | so we are left with

violets pulled to our faces | the song of

invisible brown birds | among the branches

once you lived on a strait | named for the other

side of the water | and the sky was big | it spilled

all over us | as if we were flying | but could not tell

it was so | because we were birds | drunk on grapes

fermented on the vine | cautious of caution | but

nothing else | we could have died there | except

we skipped death | algebra was better | providing

a clue to a pattern | a solution to find | each piece

of the world | in the slot meant for it |secure

as only children too young can be | did it ever rain?

did I crush a broken bird in my right hand? | How

did that song go? | I abandoned my scorpions

to the field | I remember the sun | days stretch

over the harbor before me | changing ever second

a set of trees on a small hill beside a body of water

is your compass | you know where to go from there

deeper into the shade | which is the shadow of life

down as low as you can with the flowers| to meet

them even | up high enough in the branches | to see

the scarlet tanager | a familiar bird | living near you