Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The Communication


And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond
the language of the living.
“Little Gidding” T.S. Eliot




In my blood garden,
up the softest path
my hardy center
lifts life like water,
holds death like warm earth
on a sunny day
on Sunday. Funeral spectators stand.

I do not sleep now.
“I do not sleep less,”
never-be daughter
said, “first, lift me up
then, bury me deep
build mounds, round with bone
relics of my no-life to drunk Buddha.”

I do not sleep now.
I talk in questions.
Recite holy text
about life and grief
where no solace,
is offered by the dead
who must speak fluently without our words.

Never-be daughter
said, “I do live there
where splendor is lost
because of your grief
I tell you now,
the most beautiful life
does not exist on your death-wailing earth

where I am not real
as flowers are not
in winter’s reprieve,
a transient rest.”

Is there a date you will awake and be
a flower from my mothering sorrow?

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

We



We laughed as children
together
we played
games of my childhood
in reverse, like this:

You were old, Father,
talked like a perfect
child
as I once was

a beautiful child,
I sat under news

of the well-informed
mind of a distant
father
I have learned
the art of reading
commentaries, or
obituaries,
in reverse
Imprint:
You were a good father.
You will make a good son.