THE HIMMELI ARTIST

 

Bring to me a field of endless rye

and place it in my hand.

Bring to me, too, the hand itself before

it stops to thread the needle.

Bring to me the thick urgency of soil

spinning green into shoots of golden brown.

Bring to me the consistency

of late summer sun, steadfast as a stone,

never once receding from view.

Bring to me the cleanest line drawn

from one end of the horizon to the other,

the landscape behind your eye.

Bring to me the everyday miracle

of bread, to be hung upon the open air,

the warm kitchen light that holds it

like a newborn to the world.

Bring to me the mathematics of love,

the endless intricacies of its music,

and the silence both contain.

Bring to me the sacred geometry of ladders,

those patterns within patterns,

the endless steps without ascension.

Bring to me your castle made of doorways,

one entrance leading into another.

Bring to me your rooms without room.

Bring to me the exact intersection

where we, dear friend, may one day meet,

our words spinning gently as leaves,

our glances finally understood.

DOG DAY LULLABY

 

It's morning still, and already 95 degrees.

The heat has come early and stayed,

settled in like an unwelcome guest,

clinging to everything, walking through

walls and windows, warping the closet doors

and desk drawers, weighing down

the pockets of our thin, damp clothing.

The ceiling fans turn without pause, as does

our world, of course, but slowly, slowly.

The birds have retreated into leaf-shadow.

The dogs make no sound but breath.

The daylilies bend wearily toward the earth.

From our balcony, amongst our collection

of winged seeds and twigs, my daughter

sings a song to the trees, soft and melodious,

words blowing through her at their ease,

repeating the sounds that please her.

It's a lullaby, she explains, to lull them to sleep;

and it's true, the trees seem to be hardly

moving now, as if granted a secret reprieve

by one who shares their native language.

In this way, our day has been blessed.

In this way, the air itself made light again.

THE NEARNESS OF THE LANDLINE

 

No one sounded far away in those days,

our voices traveling through the seemingly

endless wire, across cities and fields,

great bodies of water that we could never

have crossed by ourselves alone.

We could talk for hours if we were so inclined,

listening, our ears growing hot beneath

the receiver's unlit stars, saying everything

while outwardly not saying much at all.

We could hear the slightest crinkle of fabric

shifting, the restless tapping of a finger

against the soft contours of the bed,

the puff and crackle of a clove cigarette.

We could hear sound before the sound itself.

Our conversations were not dropped.

Sometimes they lingered for years.

Some, perhaps, have yet to be resolved.

But we were never afraid of silence,

never in a hurry to interrupt or explain.

We could hold the line long into the night,

the weight of its body hard against our chests,

the thick, unruly cord forever tangled,

our tired voices unspooling into breath.

"Are you still there?," I can almost hear you

whisper, as we drifted closer into sleep,

each of us in our own separate worlds,

each of us weighted with a separate longing.

We may never find the proper response.

We may never be that close again.