Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Back and Forth in the Ruins

Walking again in old clothes, October wind nestled inside my ratty shirt. Moonlight follows me in spirals and cones, whispers and streams. I carry with me a memory of horses. I carry with me a sea.

The lumber out back shifts as winter gathers. I understand less and less as time passes. The words spill behind me like handfuls of white stones marking a trail. In my dreams, a swan offers me her back, and I sit instead on the shore and watch her glide away.

I cannot put back together what was broken and so wonder back and forth in the ruins, pleading with Jesus for help or at least a map. At times our voices ascend in a single harmonious note and other times, no. I am faithful to the call heard so long ago, the one about writing writing, and my God my God, what a price I have paid. Or so it seems.

The church mouse hums gathering stale crumbs. How rarely the words falter and yet here I am, faltering amongst them. The dog returns from the lower field panting, and I remember older dogs, and something else too that I am not allowed to say. You knew something I didn't but you didn't know how to share it which was I kept trying to leave and finally - albeit roughly - did. Poetry will help you, and reading more, and more carefully.

The mossy roots of slow-toppling maple trees tap an ancient desire I choose not to render in sentences. A gorgeous home awaits us all. I come back cold and tired near midnight, no closer to the Lord, but no worse for it either. Your pale imitation - the one you spend so much time writing about - satisfies nobody.

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