Notions are hardly worth their whimsy, rising as oblong pockets from
Feathered beds below the glassy sheet of calm. Nature turned her head
Away while coughing, politely sparing us the lurches and trauma here
As distant to one place as to another. No state or nation or kingdom
Within the sound of our still ocean cradle, resting our feet instead
Along the dark-shored island, floating but not drifting, our deepest fear
On its way to greet us. But that’s only half of it. The others continue
Spreading the dullest sunshine of hope from beach to dotted beach,
Solvents disbursing the beads of lives lived before fines imposed
Language flowering from tongues tasting another tart idea in you,
Sharp and bitter in tone and meaning, piano strings tuned each
Slightly off, every interval’s high note a stretched sonnet composed
Of soft, warm words tempered in kindly tarnished steel, a century’s
Graceful patina attesting to a natural bound, wholly original piece,
One of a series presumed apocryphal until cataclysms, seismic
Even–never minding human designs–blend homes of earth and tree,
Evicting beasts of brain to free airy grey tissue, soft as cotton fleece,
Firmly but gently woven thoughts afire, inhibiting reuptake, bioelectric
Chemicals lustful and fair, this record an artist balanced on his knee
We suppose, for we must invent with conjecture and informed vision,
Lacking no creative abandon mingled with academic rigor, the story
Goes, a knock on the door and a startled intruder, the volume slides
Like an unseen token into tar, a viscous aperture closing the incision,
Sealed as is, as was, as will be until the tide brings in another worry.
But we digress. So early on and here we understand eternity abides
As merely a moment, and every moment lasts forever, as God stands
Outside the house, allows our rain and time-soaked lives a dry mist
Of calm. Let’s call this an answer to prayer. So many prayers have
We prayed, for so many of ourselves more than others, our demands
Drifting in and out of spiraled arms embraces. Swelling, the benign cyst
The naked eye cannot discern just yet like the Great Wall is a grave
For all slaves who were not masons. Stone on stone, bodies thrown
And stacked, sandbags of commerce piled high on the road toward
Every port, a tip of wing fanning flames. Flotsam and jetsam glisten.
Minor events join hands and dance accumulation of sinew and bone.
