Waiting

WAITING

The sky is clarity,

The wind, perfume,

You, a comely valley

In a sunlit room.

The sun arranges flowers

Along a window sill.

Your vine ascends, curling

About an iron grill.

Originally published in The Furious Gazelle (April 28, 2015)

Flowers on the Window Sill (2011) by Sabrina Miso

Afternoon has lost its fierceness...

Afternoon has lost its fierceness…

Afternoon has lost its fierceness like the death of summer grass, dry and crackling underfoot.

Dappled shadows fuse, separate, and coalesce—grayly shifting furtive forest animal.

Faintly the wind rises, gently kicking into circular motion fronds spinning in the liquid eyes of ponds.

Branches wave back and forth, swings, doors opening and closing, leaves entering and leaving.

Black asphalt roads glow, windswept dark coal fed by hot billows firing an old bronze censer.

Orange cats, writhing, lithe, play on jade grass, shiny crabs jostling, toys scattered at day’s end.

Trees, outspreading dream catcher nets, poise against the horizon, tracing graceful fractals against the sky.

Daylight reddens, crushing pink roses against white cheeks of clouds.

Weakening, the hour bathes in vermilion blooms drifting in the darkening ocean.

Threatening black outbursts, thick clouds close to shore migrate toward the sun now deepening crimson with fatigue.

Remotely, obscured by a diaphanous curtain of rain, boats fade in and out, motes on a planetary visage.

Pummeled by distant turbulence, outlying storms, swirling fists, hurl violently into a far constellation.

Originally published in Journeys Along the Silk Road (Lost Tower Publications, 2015), page 49

Afternoon has lost its fierceness...

Is There No Balm in Gilead?

IS THERE NO BALM IN GILEAD?

“You’re allergic to coffee,” the specialist says.

I had been wondering about those skin rashes—roseate, swollen, itchy.

I thought I had been bitten by a tarantula.

Blister clusters filled with aqueous liquid,

They popped painfully.

Morbidly, I had imagined I was leprous, beseeching

Saint Damien of Molokai to deliver me.

“Take this pill after breakfast, this one twice a day.” He adds,

“Apply this cream after your bath.”

Pausing as if to ponder the fallibility of medicine,

“Come back to see me after two weeks.”

I muse that capricious Nature would be tamed

By Science, no less, methodical knife

That is as much the geyser of serendipity

Or Providence’s boon as it is purported genius.

I console myself that descending clouds

Hide blessings. Afflictions work miracles…

A broken leg is the first step of a spiritual journey…

An ambitious man turns into a holy fool…

A widow in penury transforms into a horn of plenty.

Reversals abound. A bold man serves lepers,

Is himself ravaged by leprosy—blamelessly, ostensibly.

His pustules and ulcers, like rutted soil,

Bear fruit, nourishing ears of generosity, sweet stalks

Of charity, miracles wrought by the dying.

Hapless in life, he works miracles after death…

A woman prays to the saint, her cancer vanishes.

Turning a corner sharply, a nurse, smartly pressed,

Head-to-toe white, pushes a wheelchair, smoothly gliding. Riding,

Unshaven, a befuddled old man wrapped in a moist bathrobe.

Fronting the glass doorway, his limousine pulls up, gleaming.

He rises, his back twisted, a drooping flower.

Drooling, his head bobs uncontrollably.

Pierced by unspeakable mystery, wounded, stricken bird,

I shuffle outside, sky neither gray nor blue.

Sighing, “I guess I’ll have to drink tea instead.”

Originally published in Poydras Review (April 20, 2015) 

Father Damien of Molokai

Solitude

SOLITUDE

If a jar of wine is left in place a long time, the wine in it becomes clear, settled, and fragrant. …So you, too, should stay in the same place and you will find how greatly this benefits you.—Evagrius Ponticus, Philokalia

Solitude has come to roost on the window sill.

Flapping his wings, he alights,

Tilts his head slightly, left, right,

Looking inward, studying the past,

Investigating experience,

Peering at conscience,

Surveying the world.

Peripatetic, he asks the eternal questions.

Thoughts stream in as shafts of light between

Trees standing among truths freckled by shadows.

Answers, always partial

Always come,

Sparkling in a box of stars

Or glowing like the moon.

He attains a brook, freshly, soundlessly flowing

Uphill, roundly wholesome, utterly speckless,

Nestled atop high inaccessible

Mountain reaches. Glassfuls of water

Bring not forgetting but understanding,

Memories revolving slowly,

Uncanny clarity of a magical goblet,

Bestowing peace, oil poured into wounds.

Originally published in Thought Notebook (April 9, 2015)

He attains a brook, freshly, soundlessly flowing uphill…

The Day Laborer

THE DAY LABORER

Fraying at the brim,

A hat with holes

Darkens his face,

Folded and lined.

Beneath long sleeves,

Torn and shabby,

A dirty cotton layer

Shields his arms,

Dusky branches, wizened.

Swinging a pickaxe,

He hacks the ground,

Digging out dirt and rocks

To pay the debts

Of an elephant,

Animal he resembles

As it clambers out of water,

Dripping, shiny, wrinkled.

Filmy, perspiring,

Resting on the long handle

End of his standing tool,

He is almost motionless,

Inert gob of smoldering

Lava in deep time,

Blackened, steaming.

He sighs, heaving for

Ages and ages to come.

Untying his kerchief,

He mops his brow,

Tilts his head upward,

Blinks, fluttering eyelids,

Tremulous insects…

Sees nothing

But the sun.

Originally published in Turk’s Head Review (December 29, 2014)

In Peaceful Fields (1950) by Andrei Milnikov