peace (four poems)

rainplay

The pit-pat of rain
and little feet,
the splash of a puddle then
like liquid laughter, and
the storm is just another
plaything
to tiny toes.

artesian well

Perhaps
the hole will fill gradually,
as long-filtered rains seep down,
the weight of old winters
eroding the edges until it all runs over
into the earth.

Perhaps
it will flood in an instant,
like my heart at the sight of her, leaping
to suffuse my face with heat,
and rapid waves of hope
will be enough.

Perhaps
it will never fill.

To be empty and to know it
may be best,
for such cisterns
know true fullness when it flows.

stormcloud

Rearrange the clouds around this shadow of a hope,
that the sun will fall upon us
like the rain.

Drench our souls with truth that darker days will slip away,
like the shadow of a cloud
upon the plain.

The bitter will be swallowed as the fields lap up the storms.
We all will rise up with Him bearing fullness in our forms,
and the night will flee before us
and the peace ascend like dew
out of the pain.

still waters

Just past our door
is a little rising hill
with an oak tree and a maple
sprouting ten yards apart,
as though planted in different years
by different hands.
It inclines its chin to
the neighborly fence of the forest framing it,
against the still water of the sky.

And my daughter sees this hill
whenever she walks out our door to play.
Each passing is an imprint
of a deeper rest,
a widening assent of where she lives:
a place of hills and trees
and pond-like sky.
She has grown to love
this little hill across the way.
To her, it is the most beautiful place in all the world.

It’s only a hill.
But it is ours, and it is green,
and it is proof of home —
the simple strength of
diving roots meeting rising earth
just past our door.

gluttony (four poems)

“The storm, the blackout, the quiet sea
You went running right into it, away from me…”
“So Far, So Fast,” The National

maelstrom

He said then,
“Do not free me.
The sea is hungry,
and I have no strength to turn my ear
from the song upon the waves.”

As he spoke the lightning flickered,
mirrored in aquamarine.
“Do you hear it?”
And creatures moved in the deep.

When the rope snapped at last,
he looked long through me, luminescent:
“The call is stronger than the fold.”
And then he leaped, heeding
what he held
in his heart.

The morning brought him back again,
floating in the tide.
He never looked
more human
then when seeking
to be filled.

erosion

I want more
of Your blood, one cup is not enough,
and this book ended too soon
for my liking, I want 29 sequels,
spin-offs, and backstories.
And while we’re on the topic,

the life You promised me is hardly as exciting
as the one that I read about in the brochure.
The least You could do is show up
once or twice, a little fire in the night,
a miracle or two, a modern-day revival —
seems like You would be into that sort of thing,
at least, that’s what Your flyer suggested.

I guess if there’s not more than this,
I’ll have to take my business elsewhere.

floodplain

Falling down
is something I know.

It feels at home in my hands,
like the hungry fingers
of my children,
who also know it.

We are like rivers, I guess.
It is in our nature to go down, and down again.
and only when we are cupped in a hand
or folded into doughy clouds
is such a law suspended,
only when we fill
the thirsty earth.

Now is not enough
and never will be,
so we roll on to the ocean.
We wait to be lifted, filtered, fed —
to fall again.

golf-ball sized hail

We were standing in the line
for ice cream when the hail started,
so we hunched our shoulders
and endured
for the sake of
“two scoops peanut butter cup in a waffle cone, thanks.”

and it’s true,
we were made to eat and drink,
to like it,
but if I see brimstone
I’m out of here.