Here in the place you left, I stay
vigilant through the days of your absence
and begin to notice
a pattern: slight but unmistakable
suggestions, unlikely coincidences
among the day's arrangement of smiles,
daylight, flashes of delight.
Here in the place you left
longing, a conspiracy vast
beyond imagining takes shape
around the unmistakable shape of your absence.
During this dry spell
watch this farmer.
Too much rain is depression.
Not enough
and with every passing rainless day
the smile grows hollower,
eye contact grows briefer,
and the movements of the body
grow rigid and clumsy.
Reading the news
and all the angry discussion
about which lives matter
enough to be angry about, particularly,
and which lives matter not
particularly but only beneath
a blanket statement of generalized compassion
(assuming compassion and prayer
are a zero-sum game),
I keep thinking
about my body
and about three deep breaths.
On these dog days
beneath the haze
I can barely hear
the wordless voice
of the shy creature:
How do we know
the presence of the Friend
draws near?
On a stump
at the edge of the field, someone
is opening a melon.
Every body knows.
To greet you
in our reunion
I'd been saving
a moment
over a slow cup of tea,
but I gave it
to the cooling evening
before last.
This is a step in my story
when the ragtag affiliation
of superheroes—willful, egoistic,
well-intentioned—must recognize
the extent of collateral damage
incurred during Act II
and somehow become
a Team, one one-willed saintly body.
I don't know what you call
the opposite of a land mine
but I found another today.
I was cleaning
and I found a dusty jar of kohlrabi pickles
sealed in the summer just before the war.
I've kept these pickles a long time—
there were days
I wouldn't look at them.
My prayer is to live
by this returning moment:
anger recognizes itself,
lays itself down
in a fresh bed
of cold soil,
gives itself back
to the original longing.
Keep faith
if not always hope
with your heart and what it holds.
Follow in momentous footfalls
the way of your particular longing
until you find your lost beloved
bound up, tangled indelibly
in the world, her fragrance
found in everything
and everything found in her.
Lord, help me to pray
less. Help my gratitude grow
plainer, for smaller and commoner things.
Help my exaltations
dissolve into breath.
And by grace, may I make peace
where the shy wordless creature
can squeak his petitions—
small prayers for small moments
when I break off two squares of chocolate,
slide one across the table,
and smile. I have nothing to say.
When Batman saved Gotham
having finally figured out
how to synthesize an antidote,
he couldn't go back to just being
Bruce Wayne—like most superheroes
Batman is maladjusted
for everyday life, maladapted
to a saved world.