Prayer

Oh! that we could all
come blazing over the horizon
every morning,
filling every tiny throat
with singing,
that we could rouse the sap
in sturdy trunk
and tender saplings,
could cause the leaves
to raise their fine-veined palms
in joy and reverence,
transform soil and water
into everyman's sustenance,
light the way across our deserts;
and at the darkening of the day,
when our arc begins to shorten
and descends gently below the horizon,
spread that glowing russet cloak
across the great breadth of forlorn and harried unease.



No Good

This Long Island hill
ain't no good for restin'
'cause I just found out
my man's been here testin'
his luck with another woman.
Bald-headed fool!
You think I got no rule,
I'm just sugar for your tool?
Hunh!
You take the cake.
Baby, you made one biiiiiiig mistake!


Deeper

I was angry,
full of sour struggle.
She listened, and then said,
"Go deeper."
A sharp inhalation,
and at once
a threshold.
An opening. "Yes."
Into that beckoning emptiness
a quiet, easy sinking.
A plumb line down
that takes me deeper,
sure and straight,
then broadening.
The air is kind, with the scent
of autumn leaves on the forest floor.
The measured, steady beat
on the drum of my ribcage
a comfort. I am not frightened
of the dark, nor of the soft humming.
I have always known this place.