LITMIR.BIZ

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on a metaphoric heart

      no one will ever see, reenacted

      by a mind/brain as impossible

      to believe in as the soul

      Because absurdity is love believing

      in belief itself, “evidence” of things not seen

      to energize the crossed paradox

      consciousness cooperates to raise

      upon a hill no one can find

      outside an ahistorical story

      Because of the absurdity of believing

      God’s mind opened like a tomb,

      pried dead flesh up as with a spoon

      and threaded bones together in the air

      Because absurdity must sing itself to sleep

      in belief, for nothing else will do,

      will ever do, and nothing

      will never do, so the jest

      of thinking confesses yet again

      “Blessed are you who believed

      that what was spoken to you by the Lord

      would be fulfilled”

      said the very old to the very young,

      so we are told. And tell.

      A PRAYER FOR FIRST LIGHT

      You worked while I was sleeping,

      spirit slumped against the sill,

      a blank house, an old address,

      stale smells and dust.

      I tilted up the cellar door

      for a shovel’s freight of coal

      slid down the silvered chute

      into the old neighborhood.

      I slumbered in ash, conformed

      to the ashman’s wagon

      as it trailed the morning fog

      past our stoop all winter.

      Heard the city sparrows cry

      hunger over the tarred housetops,

      third-shifters fumble for their keys,

      first bayings from the slaughterhouse.

      You ordered the sun up at last

      over the foundry’s pouring smokestack.

      Window frost melted the past.

      And I rose up, as you see, singing.

Incarnate

      INVITATION

      Come to the manger.

      See the crossed

      leg-brace rehearse.

      Come to the manger

      now. New breath

      rises. Eyes clear.

      Come to the manger

      from anywhere.

      Encompass one star.

      Come to the manger

      without distinction. Rejoin

      the peaceable kingdom.

      Come to the manger.

      Straws of gold

      nail up the light.

      Come to the manger

      tonight. Sheep plead

      for the sleeping hills.

      Come to the manger

      along the old roads, singly

      or together. Come as you were.

      Come to the manger

      over land and water. Air

      will feed you. And fire.

      Come to the manger

      modest with miracle,

      rebirth and rebirth.

      Come to the manger

      without frankincense or shoes.

      Bring only your hunger

      for what you dream

      you cannot bear to lose.

      ADVENT

      Tugging his shoulders after him,

      flimsy rake tines tremble through leaves

      dank and flat as stripped skin.

      Down his thighs his muscles grieve

      their work under pewter skies.

      December’s stainless steel winds

      incise the bared face of his alibis.

      He is naked neck to shins

      under these clothes, and alone.

      Roots beneath his feet, he’s been told,

      hold these waving branches down.

      He feels how deep they are. And cold.

      The necessary work lags, stalls

      against this iron ground freezing

      into permanence. He pulls

      night closer with every swing.

      Painfully, he leans forward.

      Indistinct mounds surround him.

      The moon disappears. He looks toward

      the house, its sharp edges growing dim.

      Soon he must go in. The wind

      is rising, nailing leaves to the trees

      and his rake again. The ground

      beneath one golden window glows.

      ADVENT SONG: WOODEN ANGEL

      She knows.

      She tries to tell the traffic

      moiling through the blowing surge,

      peach-pink streetlights

      just coming on, fuzzy with snow.

      They cannot hear her

      for their radios and icy wipers.

      The snow collects light

      despite the growing dusk.

      She heralds its glowing

      reflection, its hoarded joy,

      sun and moon somewhere else,

      just gray light enough

      to release my window panes

      and set embroidered animals

      dancing. An old engine,

      the radiator steams

      beneath the windows.

      I fill one chair.

      My angel of the sill

      welcomes me also

      with her wooden horn,

      but I am not the one

      she has waited for

      seed to split to trunk

      in that wide stand of pine

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