More on: Poetry

To sing of origins is to set a course
to anoint a present where cows and angels
cowherds and shepherd kings
all shine in heaven’s light

That first morning, I remember
clinging to a table’s edge—
both legs jackhammering the white

linoleum floor tiles—praying for
my benzodiazepine to finally,
finally kick in.

. . . faith in the faith that the way the story ends
is not the story—

May some mercy find them both.

Deacon Nkosi, a member of the church, told the newspaper,
“The pastor taught us about faith on Sunday last week.”

Maybe I was too bus-lagged to haggle over
the price of a portent, much less a cheap
souvenir. . .

Bible open. On her lap. Same page for years.
Her white hair. Spooky red ink. Deuteronomy.

There are so many ways to fly and walk
in place I never move.

In my absence, one sprig of English ivy
has crept through a crack
under my window.

All at once the stillness breaks
into a great applause of wings, the mounting up
in doxology, the downsweep then
of many heads in prayer.

There will be thousands of warm nights

like this one, millions of the beetles, this whole darkened face
of earth erupting in brief constellations.