Bent on Grace but Facing Penance

Cold: more cold: over and over cold. Moonlight streams unconditionally, being the same refulgence Cleopatra knew. Thought empties itself and what remains? Be humble, if possible, and if not humble, at least quiet. I mean, first do no harm.

I mean the whiteness of moonlight on snow, the cry of coyotes a mile away, and the clear forgiven emptiness that always attends now. Holes in my boots and holes in my jacket mask the abundance I perennially hoard. Fear. Coming back one smelled woodsmoke mingled with cedar and later yet saw faint braids entwining framed by the moon. A gloveless, trembling and lusty traveler bent on grace but facing penance.

You understand that letters are unafraid of ash after being read, yes? Refusal bleeds through the illusory images called life and demands a truer accounting. Her name has nearly slipped my lips twice in three days, she who has been gone now longer than I can count. We scale the hill in opposition to gravity, doing what sap cannot, but what we - not the royal, the plebeian we - must. Who strains toward Heaven has misread the relevant maps of course.

Oh write to me, won't you, fastening here and unfastening there? Candles a poor substitute but light a good idea. And sing a little louder that I might give attention to what so far has only lightly pressed the borders of - the ecstasy of - knowledge. The voluble morning knows our secret names and where we hide them. Such gracious syllables, such benevolent shadows.