Simple places

The longer
time grows
on
stretching
as wisteria
for the nearest
anchor yet
to be,
the more
few
events grown
old
reach up tall
and shadow
all the rest--
these blossom
into corner stones:
places where
foundations join,
and render
simple places,
time,
sacred.

Pieta

Traveling near
the speed of sound
couched in
the heights
of a clear blue
jet stream
time is passed
in glossy magazines--
here the
traveler's ad
shows a cradled
infant with man's
head --it speaks
of service
passed in the
instant of an
newborn's dream.

I am reminded of
the young Madonna
holding the Son
who has died
beyond her years--
the sculptor speaks
to us of the
revealing across
more than thirty
years
compressed into
this mother's loving
gaze
at the newborn.

So this ancient, sacred hall,
this cavern that stretches
beyond the masterpiece
is marked at the far end
as the near
by hands fixed to a
ticking
cross.
Yet sitting here,
with mind jumping
from page to dog-eared
page, is not
fast-forward--
the sculpture
does not
move.
It is at
once--
mass compressed
so tightly
it holds the light within
as a black hole in
the galaxy
where gravity grasps
and squeezes it
to diamonds.

We are flying to
Eden now
to the place, the birth
that came "at once,"
when the gardener
called for light,
the cover of the
book fell open
and words began to
scramble up and out,
over the edge,
as if escaping
into the plot
from the destination
that is the end.
Now we begin
to understand.

Peace

Is it the peace
that comes at morning,
before the town awakes,
or the one that follows sunset,
after the last cardinal
sounds its call?
Could be the quiet
before falling off
to dreamful sleep--
or the slow stretch
after a Sunday nap
when the house is yours alone?
Is it the calm
in the summer air
before the pounding squall
or the purple
smell of ozone
after the thunder's gone?
Perhaps the lovers' pause
across the candle light
knowing they will now retire,
or the soft sigh
that follows ragged breathing
on the sparking coals of passion?
No, It's the soft gurgle
of a newborn
before the cry--
or the tiny gulp and gasp
after grabbing the warm breast
with his hungry lips?
Then it's the serene
contentment of two friends
sipping tea at four--
or the silence
that follows the forgiven
angry word?

Maybe the pause
before the trumpet
sounds the Armageddon note
or the stillness
as the dust of battles
floats to earth at last?
Is it the peace
of a child's sleeping
innocence,
or the embrace
of an old man
who has breathed his last?
No, it's the peace
of Eden before
the fratricide;
no, the stillness
of Easter morning,
before the tongues are flamed.

These sheets

These sheets of white
patches
hold letters stitched
together
across the wide open
spaces
in ebony words
shaped
and spoken in long
stanzas
short on recitation
forever
in the lives they tell

These sheets may be
held
up to the
sun
as trans--
parencies
of ancient
ruins
or they can be
stood
upright along the earthy
seams
and joined at mitered
corners
where they rise to white
steeples
as a lean--to of hands
fashioned
pointing to the sky.


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