More on: poetry

In the ancient Greek, “liturgy” means “work done for the people.” Someone calls around 9:30, as he’s brushing his teeth for bed. An Orthodox in a nursing home has passed in McKeesport, and the priest is out of town. Up since five, he drives the hour north, prays for the soul, anoints the body. Earlier,…

Ancient salt burned in the Temple incense, but also consumed. Mined, gathered from flats or evaporated Dead Sea brine— theories vary. So strong, hands were washed after meals because a careless touch to the eye could cause blindness. Lord, make us this pungent, that others might be thrown down blind, lifted up at the sight…

What good is fighting now? You’re dying. Light will greet you wherever you go. Or it will not. Go gentle into that good night. Why rage against your sleep another night with fists that won’t unclench the twisted sheet? What good is fighting now? Your dying light shines its blossom of sharpened bones. Your plight,…

Maker of heaven and earth ——-of time and season Thinker-upper of soil —— of autumn decay, and rot and roots drawing nutrients ——-whatever they are that feed and sustain —— the beauty of the lilies, and the violets Imagineer of variety Puller-offer of the impossible breaking our hearts ——-every spring day ——-with greater magnolia blossom ————–finer,…

Like Abraham and Sarah at the Mamre oaks before the hard-earned good news, and like David and Bathsheba in the royal house with the tenderness of the first night, my sainted mother and father rise in the west over the sea with all the glows of God upon them— for all the weight of their…

I came into the land as if into a kiln to add more fire to the fire burning. To add another body for the keen blade of the Hebrew destiny. And at a gloomy hour I feel myself in the land of Israel as if deep in the cut of the wound— and it is…

I am the whisper matches rattle in their cold and boxy hovels. I’m desire gone to ground. I am efficient, almost secret; you can read in me such scripture of the most compacted and contented red-light district. Impish sample seraph, humblest in lust, I am the apocryphalest rumor waiting just around the corner. See me…

Some small bone in your foot is longing for heaven                           —Robert Bly This twinge at first stir too modest for throb, more diffident than tug, not an itch, not the most incurious twitch of a hook, not a jerk, but the tease…

Heaven is a field I am driving an old truck across in the only dream I have on the subject. The sky over that pasture is so blue I know it will burst if it doesn’t turn twenty different reds at evening. The truck is my granddad’s ’72 Ford, still smelling of oilfield and aftershave.…

Where is the Garden of Eden? Can I see it from the hotel, east-facing room on the eighteenth floor? Does the 18 bus stop there? My children, I think, they must have grown up in the Garden of Eden while I was away with work, eighteen-hour nights and days. Look—their radiant faces! Listen—their voices, sweet…