(x = space)
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Second Book of Genesis
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God kept saying
That it’s good
Creation’s good
Each day of it
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To be there
Hear the names
Have God speak into our minds
In pre-fall grace
With understanding
There is delight
And faith
In all this
Without they’re being named
Only the day and night
All the animals
Us
And then a time of rest
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If we had been there
If we could have touched their hands
And drawn them back
From the tree
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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Thirty Means End of Story
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How will it end
We do not know
What happens next
We have great lore
And supposition
We have stories
Of returns
We should believe them
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(not years—thirty is or used to be a sign in journalism)
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Photo by Rishabh Sharma on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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holy and holy
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one priest one day a year
I wonder if it were cleaned
maybe by the priest
how dusty would it get
without a cleaning
over time
would the priest walk through dust
to find the glorious container
in which was God
maybe a walk through dust
reminded the priest
of mortality
on the way to what is glory
and shall never change
such a day it might be
when splendid robes
are marred
walking through the dust
accumulated
by passing time
by mortality
by forbidding rules
with eternity beyond
how tempting it might be
to stay
not have to walk back
through the particles
of death
reminding everything unclean
but the assignment ends
other rules pull
back through earth
back to earth
changed
moving faith
for another year
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Photo by Andy Køgl on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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spooky times
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have a good hallowe’en
be safe
no razor blades
did that ever happen
not to invoke a retry
of insanity
nothing to do
with trick-or-treat magic
costumes for the veil
that entertain
the fun kind of fear
civil ghosts
good witches who
spell out
in autumn
south in spring
in chocolate letters
marshmallow punctuation
masks
ephemeral disguise
‘til it’s time to treat
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Four pumpkins, individually carved for Halloween 2020. One with a COVID mask.
(detail)
photo by the blowup on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Futurism
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Men retreat
Women advance
Children waiting
They play
An idea forms
A dream invented
All go toward
An interpretive horizon
Until the line and
Agenda are released
And all go home
With marbles
So many
You would not believe
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Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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We’re Often Told
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I have no idea why
A nice song comes to mind
And then another
It’s not for beatific sleep
Or a sweet disposition
Wakened first thing
By the telephone
It’s not because of bristly
Wind outside,
Blowing what fall colors
We have known
Off slender branches
That could have been clothed
A while longer, should
Nature have consulted me
Tired, cranky
Thinking so-and-so by so-and-so
And I mean me
It should be a gray and spiny
Day by all accounts
Gray and apathy
Yet pleasant lyrics
With their high notes come
My way, though I did not
Ask them to
Serenaded by the mariachis
I have made up in
A mind that will not quit
Drugged by caffeine,
Scarred over
Not so pretty if I ever was
An inside and an outside
Needing shelves
And somehow from the files
Arising from the folders
Made of neurons
There is
Something to listen to
The kind that has no hearing
Seeing a singer
Who’s not there
On stage in costume
For a minimal production
Of a bittersweet play,
Which is what I get
Shortly after waking
On a late-fall day
In Pennsylvania of the USA
Wherever you might be
Might be the same
Company across telepathy
Made by
The chief of surgery
Who’s had the job
Since there were eons
Needing mending
With a song
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“Somebody to Watch Over Me” by Ira Gershwin, George Gershwin
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Photo by Dmitriy K. on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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For All Souls
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Soon
And very soon
It will be time for
Remembering
The dead
Los Díos de los Muertos when
Graveyards light with
Stunning light in
Some places,
Other places
Less so
For remembrance
x
There will be candy
Other foods
Meals shared beside
The stones
It is Latino
Latin-x
Other groups have other ways
Of memory
x
For some, this becomes
A party
Like a wake
For others, city-wide
Express or digress
There will be something
It is for
Everyone
Para todos
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To Latin-x
The community
In thanks
The ones who inspire
A lighted way
For shadows,
A way to catch our tears
But for love
In remembering
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Sugar skulls before decoration.
[image b]y Jonathunder – Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63912646
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(sorry, I add a hyphen to Latin as a help in my pronouncing)
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(x = space)
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Slight Season
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The sun is out
I should be going to it
There might be chill
It might be fall
At last
Not too soon to winter, please,
Which is the trouble
With the seasons in-between
Their timing seems so fragile
When
Arriving
Surprising, when it seems
They stay a good, long while
Leaving the severities
To themselves
And their own time
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Photo by Jana Shnipelson on Unsplash
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(x = space)
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Look Now
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I pulled on the window shade
The old-fashioned kind
I got stuck with
Gray all around
I suspect another strange fall day
Too hot in the eastern USA
This year
x
It takes a couple tugs
But without the absurd length
That it can get to,
The shade goes up
And it might be too hot
But the leaves that look at me
Inches from the glass
Are autumn first
Colors mixed with summer green
Red and orange, yellow
All say hi
(green sighs)
We are here
x
It is the season, anyway
And I am thankful
Whose formality comes
Later on
With cornucopia
Thick tablecloths
And such
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And while there is no peace
There is small, sustaining
Joy
In nature’s
Hello in the season
Outside
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Photo by eberhard 🖐 grossgasteiger on Unsplash
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