You, Brother Lover
and you, Sister Strong
and you, Sister Strong
siphon wailings from my
lungs, screams
and words that expand
every wall
into it’s other side,
and dance and wheat and
salt
our love upon the earth
to taste of scab and
stain like rain.
Even over ocean and
plain,
yours is my pain.
My gut and breast are
sick
for your children.
My eyes raw with what
you cannot un-see.
With each prayer
breathed,
you bend my knee.
You run deep in me.
We let riversong rush the
world out.
We let stillness swamp
echo the world in, slow.
All of it, waves
urging us onward and
deeper, onward and
deeper.
Talking to us from
Ireland
or underwater,
or straight from our
fathers' mouths,
or warbly
through some tape
recorder that missed us
under the bridge of holy
rage.
The King and the
Hummingbird,
Russian Olive and Cypress
Tree,
you run deep in me.
And in the streets, We:
chanting and preaching.
Shouting maniac, play
mask, play prophet.
Harass the neighbors!
Harass the angels!
Shake the mother from her
sleeping trunk
and die a little,
just for fun.
And in the streets, We:
dancing and squealing,
spinning entire
shorelines on our skirt tips,
stomp waltz steps in
rosewater puddles, clasp
hands and beat dirt with
One fist,
for those whose blood has
curdled.
This love.
A love, inevitable, as it
may be;
A love that found God,
killed him, feasted,
and bore sacred poetry;
A love of reinforcements
and returning;
Oh, my Pharoah,
Oh, my Queen,
You run deep in me.
No comments:
Post a Comment