comes fire

i.
in my waking dreams, looking out--
rain sliding down the windows--
i see myself walking about on the lawn, pretending to be loved,

feeling the delicious wet midnight grass under foot...
my sleepy hands fumble with the sheets
and then search along the long wall of my mind

not knowing if i am sleepwalking while feigning hope
or walking while awake unconscious with despair
it may be all the same...

arriving at the threshold called mercy
i cannot reach the latch...
but your door, lord, is patient

ii.
no telling out brings peace
nor does pummeling the hardness inside
soothe the hurt

is all of this necessary?
to move me? to what?
truth? using words?

i could easier tat syllables into lace,
every scalloped edge rhyming with orange

iii.
not that all wordy shallows
are poor wading

but the well of silence
is rich and resonant
with watery glintings
and crashings of light

iv.
you do not know how to go
from this moment to the next
you cannot merely think it to
raise a foot or pick up a pen...

no, it is the will, the pulsing spirit
that impels to write, or propels to run,

or nudges and provokes a mountain
to move, and opens a door inside

v.
in the small hours of quiet and disquiet
in our hollow rooms that make for wanting,
that ache for the echoing swells of bliss

we long for hands to reach inside, to rip out
the cold heavy blocks of darkness and pour in the sticky
warm love of angels, and the burning urgency of galaxies

the gift of lovefire is the spiritual birth material of the universe...
we are born new, not out of the clicks and gutturals of ancient tongues
but in the warm communion of lips telling out love with a kiss of peace.

we are crowned not with tongues of flame but the radiant nimbus of desire,
beholding the beloved in yielded communion of flesh and spirit
to know and be held in the very heart and hands of God.

a great blue flies over with a grraaup
headed for the rookery on the river below
pumping the air with his big gray wing-paddles,
long stick legs trailing behind...i keep pace with a smile...

a hummer zippps by, whirrrs in and out,
sipping at tiny red trumpets-on-a-stick...but
how did i miss these before, right here by the road?
so i slow down to wonder at it...trying not to disturb with my puffing...
have never seen a hummer here...can these red things grow in a day?

and now a cottontail pokes out of the tall grass
and quiet-hoppities across the road
like no one's around
like i'm not standing right there
arms akimbo, amazed and steamy,
with a mile and a half of earned sweat

morning glow swells and shoves over
my beautiful fuzzy gray dawn...
the daily egg breaks over the hill
spilling yolk on oak and cedar
and i turn back toward the house
and coffee
and contemplation of all of this magical stuff

let
us
Cross
pollinate
and
become
the
Love
yellow
of
each
other

"oh dear," you sigh

here, look at this...i mean, really...
eucharist is sometimes just too much

a sip or a mouthful of bloody wine
chewing and swallowing the bready flesh

confessing all sorts of things done and undone--
how about a little less of then, a little more now?

how about instead of a homily we all talk
about being surprised by holiness at work?

we could still have bread and wine while we talked...
or maybe dr pepper and mashed potatoes