Exercise 8
My child, she did not even fuss, the days
were tranquil weather, ripped apart in cramps,
nothing lost or questioned long, nothing gone
awry or reeling back to God, ibid.
The pain still forced its resonance above;
her thoughts, hallucinations from below
now stopped to ruminate at water’s edge.
The tides rotate until she finds herself.
Of course the weather comes for us so long,
and sunny days are lies throughout the spring,
and plants proliferate themselves apart,
and every man a word so softly spoken.
I used to think of grace about my friends
as scarves, a marking for the harvest;
ripened for the other world, they’d find
the days were early as they passed the door.
Other times the fruit would feel entropic;
soul will fall away to flesh, the peel
mistaking its supremacy for nought.
My songs collapsed inside the month I fell.
Every friend will fall away? →
Every breath a suspect in the self? →
Every wound a lethal child? →
And all I have → a single chance for lasting love?
I do not know the words to ask →
Do you hold your soul with endless ease?
Do you sleep with resignation by the scythe?
Do you watch the slipping of your narrow world?
Before remembering my endless lie
I feel so small and meaningless before the bargain.
I am the speck that serves the endless love.
My only duty promises her tranquil waters.