Both Sides of the Noose

The folds of Mary's robes near the knee - it's as much of the Pieta as I can bear to look at - make me cry and yet. When one turns inward one faces first the possibility there is nothing there. How easily "why me" becomes "why not you?" Here's a clue: dog is just code for the self.

After thirty-one years the marriage went bad. My pajamas are still unfolded, the newspaper my father asked me to read is not. The story is about soap and silence but also about the interior light. Some things - including this ash heap you call the world - just can't be cleaned. And yet Scotland goes with you everywhere, doesn't it?

That soft moment when the chords transition downward into the relative minor and one is ready - almost - to follow. Forgive me Mother for I believed that I sinned and so lost a thousand lifetimes to guilt. One comes to understand that they have been on both sides of the noose and then what. No stars, the last leaves scratching as they fall and for once you don't need to make a poem out of it. In my dream, Michelangelo explains there is nothing to explain.

Thank you he wrote. My library card survived the washing machine! There are days when talking about God is ill-advised. You can only circumnavigate the night so many times before it's day. And now this.