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Contents:
Tears, like all prayers,
trickle down
to the sea,
where they mingle
with salted sorrows
of ancient seasons.
Each holy drop
sanctifies the deep
and vice-versa,
mutual immersion,
a recompense,
a communion.
Tears, like all prayers,
find their way
Home.
TRANSITION
Our fathers’ science
reduces my selfhood to widgets
a model, a machine,
idly ticking clockwork,
pointless.
Our mothers’ religion
renders my body a shadow
a slut-shamed sleaze
a clay model, a precursor,
discounted.
Our daughters’ science
consecrates wholeness
First Light made mortal meat,
cosmic wind incarnate,
alive.
Our sons’ religion
marries meat and mind,
a sweaty pungent monument
a galaxy, a destination,
a symphony.
Grandchildren bathe in sunbeams
dichotomies barely memories
of ancestors’ primitivities;
all space here, all time now,
singly One.
Singly One.
You, My Child
In the grainy old photo
the hazelnut satin of your cheek
nestles softly, perfectly
in the pink-pale curve bridging
my shoulder and face.
The photo chuckles of how
your body far outgrew the you in my mind,
and I hold you like the much-smaller child
who still sleeps in my memory,
easy, loosely, longingly.
Oh little sister,
that longing aches as if
I had birthed you myself, as if
I could subdue all the monsters
around and within and between us,
and it marshals all my will not to
squeeze you back into me
for safety
for beauty
for a better time yet to come
for us both.
But you have parents of your own
and I have children of my own
and though I count you among them
those others are waiting for us,
for my awakening,
for your blossoming
for our grandchildren to hold
the easy gaze of each other’s eyes.
My child,
we are both children of Africa
here by two roads that diverged on a plain,
each a bloody trackless rut,
each exacting awful tolls,
each of us missing
some essential pieces.
But here in this photograph,
this moment of ease and comfort,
the deserts are crossed
the seas are stilled,
the shackles rust away, and
we are whole once again
for one sleepy moment,
a pregnant fullness moment,
and a longing that remains.
In Berkeley Springs, West by God Virginia,
holy water gushes
from the spout of a hill,
so abundant there could never
be enough infants to sprinkle, or
sinners’ fingertips to sanctify,
or tongues to swallow reverently,
so they bathe in it, splashing, greening
the beckoning park prophetic with
cherry blossoms and redbuds resplendent
in violet, lavender, magenta, and wine all spring,
and still it runneth over.
Families baptize each other in shorts, tank tops,
and teasing laughter.
Children squee-splash in crocs and flip-flops,
haloed by light through noble trees,
a few dandelions here and there
for braiding into crowns.
Endless streams of cars spill
torrents of petitioners bearing
casks, chalices, and canteens, sacred
vessels of every color and design
to fill and ferry home, to partake
of the abundant water of life,
and be anointed.
Couples pilgrimage together from pool to pool,
barefoot on the mossy grass, fingers and glances
entwined, raptured as every couple ever,
as if The Fall never happened
for this is Grace abounding,
bestowing, overflowing as every wellspring ever, forever bequeathing
the very water of ancient ancestors,
oceans,
Earth,
and god Herself, poured
out like loaves and fishes without cease,
provided eternally to the least of these, as if