God, if anywhere, is in the golden carpet
By Poetry Issue 122
the flowers give a scent of honey
Read MoreIf I Speak for the River
By Poetry Issue 108
I must take shoes and clothes off and leave them on the bank for nakedness is water’s first language.
Read MoreLow Road to a High Place
By Poetry Issue 105
No thing made
or unmade, or born or yet to be, can separate us from the Love
that drew us forth from weave to know the weave and return to it.
Prayer
By Poetry Issue 103
When will I have time to do
that which I desire,
that which I can’t make
myself do, ever?
Knock
By Poetry Issue 96
I wouldn’t call gulping a glass of ale and backhanding foam off your upper lip a form of devotion, or the refusal to laugh at an off-color joke a sign of reverence. But I could imagine God, a wounded rat in one hand, a soothing song— I do not say on his lips. No, it’s…
Read MoreTheodicy with Tents and Masonry
By Poetry Issue 95
1. When my unemployed faith reappeared as boredom, it seemed a diplomatic triumph. But just about then animals began to intercept me in my wanderings. I grew more and more susceptible to their solicitations. Trees are probably fearless, but the forest should have known better than to show off like that. We had long known…
Read MoreRomanian Orthodox Choir
By Poetry Issue 91
This chasm. Quite simply, the abyss. Gale in a sultry church. Out of the dark the voices of seraphim. A beauty impossible to bear. A theology of opposites: in Christmas hymns this sorrow like a lidless coffin. Humble, the unknown soloist folds his hands and bows his head in gratitude for the applause. Suddenly we’re…
Read MoreWalking the Dog Last Night
By Poetry Issue 89
While my dog examined the yellow messages On lampposts And in the dry grass And morsed back messages of its own I asked myself Am I holding the dog by the leash Or is it the other way around And the dog is holding me? Maybe it seems foolish to involve God in this But…
Read MoreCloudless
By Poetry Issue 86
I have begun to think that God is small like a wren, a piece of blue beach glass shining in the wet of sea and sky, that double exposure. Every day the huge sun, the blue vault brimming with invisible stars. Each night the echoing expanse of dark and always God in the palm of…
Read MoreCanticle of Want
By Poetry Issue 86
Lord of worn stone cliffs and the guileless trill of the canyon wren; Lord of stunted hemlocks, imperiled mussels, seeds that fall on shallow soil; Lord of boreal forests, of the fragile nitrogen cycle, of vanishing aquifers, spreading deserts; Lord of neglect and…
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