Poetry

Sacred Renewal

That smack in the face is our town’s

oldest building. I tell it, be patient,

yellow brick, I say, stripped,

not seen naked by anyone

in more than one hundred years.

Be patient a bit longer, pediment failing us.

Oh, I’ve been tuckpointed before, called out,

embarrassed, labeled a disgrace. I know

dense masonry when I see it. It crumbles

old bricks like me, maybe you, proud and stained.

Renewal isn’t easy. Remember Virginia? Forced out

of her studio when the property changed hands.

On the back side by the old jail, sloven bricks.

“I think I can still break out of that place,” I say

to the mason’s assistant, bearded, snarfing, laughing.

Structures sag inside so much of me,

my lungs and brain cleansed by a generous creek

shy of the trailhead, greening my trimmings.

When I walk to the trail, I tell myself what I already know:

fitted as bricks, bricks stripped, thinking renewal, bricks

not beating us, but revealing our open hearts

wanting to be held, reformed. Here in nature’s

synagogue of oaky groves, Eastern Phoebe

sings me the truth: be new, be new.

Attentive to Works of Bees

Bees come to arrest my heart,

and I’ve been stung

by four.

The bumblebee admires purple

like a universal sign of the cross

for Sting Me,

waving my hands

in front of my face, blessing

the epistolary hovering.

Against the will of the wind,

blue cups situate me

among mint.

Tendrils sign

themselves into me, my tallness

or shortness, quite busy,

with time for everything.

I figure it’s doing the work

to stop the bombing somewhere.

We’re involved in green

aromatherapy and mint

as our own prayer.

Like the body of a saint,

accepting all that’s right

and wrong with us,

surrounding our thoughts

with peace of one word:

h-u-s-h.

Waiting Room

The simplicity of the waiting room

invites a sentence to begin with the.

The mothers holding their cuddling ones,

a troubled boy calmed by phone-in-arms,

smiles, as names called, with all comfort

of my fear, maybe yours, thinking the worse

over a stink bug upside-down on the carpet.

Braydon’s name sung as loud

as a skinned knee over a basketball court

of seated dermatologists on bleachers,

every impetigo, clusters of blisters,

spreading the legs, hands covering genitals,

and now nothing seems simple, washing,

ointment, eventual healing in the sun

of rash blessings.

Summer Bath

I bob ten times

at my morning bath

near the forest window.

Robins notice.

Seen up close,

the dandelion

heals me

from the inside.

I look at the animal trail

walking into my interior.

Deer and creek

soothe me.

Grasses for cover,

corn for silken modesty.

A golden God,

up close,

rising from the east,

whistles to me.

I am as luscious

as butter

and lamb’s ear

on my chin.

Like joy

up close,

I am tickled.