Comfort

Your soft eyes are closed now, and you are dreaming of milk, tiny fists fumbling around your lips.

You are breathing, and I am so glad.

You weren't breathing so well the other night, and the more raspy your breath the more scared I got.

And the more scared I got, the harder you cried, and the less you sounded like my baby, and the more you sounded like a helpless stranded seal.

I gathered up your helpless little seal-ness into my arms, and I held you.

And I prayed for you, and I prayed for me too, because that was what you needed, and it was all the same.

Oh, sweet Jesus, still the salt waves of my soul.

And I calmed down, not because you were okay or even because I hoped you might pull through, but because this was so deadly serious.

And then you grinned at me, and barked.

And you and I together held each other both, until finally we could breathe.

Cana

This is not redemption. Nonetheless,

through the silent shame of waiting, still obey.

Blow a trumpet in Zion, for the press
will flow with blood like wine before that day.

The hour has not come yet. Even so,

do whatever thing it is he asks.

Waiting through the waters here below,

gather them. Fill up the six stone casks.

What the locusts ate, he will restore,
in due season sending forth the rain

'til from the hilltops milk and honey pour,

but the cup of joy must be the cup of pain.

This is not redemption, but the sign

of waters deep from which he forms new wine.

Rush Hour

It is not daytime anymore, and stars
these days have ceased to complicate the sky.
Our lesser lights are earthly. Rivers of cars
now mark the times, and we are measured by
how well we wrap ourselves around the flow
of the bright bedazzling rhythms here below.

Tree of Knowledge

Wise serpents call, eternal fall from grace
still tempts with sweetly scientific fruit.
Bright gleaming walls, majestic tall the place
where babbling exiles search for Eden's loot.
    But oh, the spoils are spoiled in the quest,
    our toil a foil for our desired rest.

 

In which we are very busy teaching a certain someone some boundaries....

This morning I was sitting in my chair,
eating eggs and drinking breakfast tea,
when one small boy with tousled sandy hair
came down the stairs and sat on top of me.

He took my fork into his little hand,
and told me that I ought to move my book
lest it get wet; who knows where eggs might land,
and anything nearby might get some gook.

I thanked him for his sweet consideration,
and offered to saute an egg for him,
but much to my surprise and consternation,
he looked at me as though I'd grown quite dim

and motherhood had turned my brains to fluff;
THAT was his egg, and one egg was enough!

Piraeus

You came with me, down into the world
of flux and change, the edge of the wine-dark sea.
You rose before dawn's blossoming had pearled
the sea-grey clouds, yearning for the free
expanse of pure and undistracted thought.
I held you, pleading: keep the discourse here.
Compelled by love, you stayed, and so we sought
to build our city of words between the dear
distractions: sippy-cups, reflux, and change
another diaper. Under brooding night
we'd fall exhausted, chafing at the range
to which we now resigned our minds' poor sight.
    Yet in these letters large we found the soul,
    written in each part as in the whole.

Temptation

This my purgatory, pulsing words.
My forlorn pen looks out across the room,
all strewn with leaves, and splashed about with ink.
Minerva glides seductive through the groves,
and twines herself about the double tree.
The salty fruit still haunts my silent tongue
as I tidy up for dinner.