ARRIVING
“In the year of our Lord 565…there came into Britain
a famous priest and abbot, a monk by habit and life,
whose name was Columba, to preach the word of God….”
--Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England,
Book III, Chapter IV
Arriving is the hardest part, the work
spread out barren as this shingle, this rough skirt
surrounding nothing but a bit of green turf,
a gull-swept sky, and the angel-empty air.
In this clamoring silence of breakers, birds,
and surf, I kneel and wet the hem of my robe.
Now is the time for invocations, for prayers
to fill this empty place with words made flesh.
Yet to be are the mortared stones, the joists
of English oak, the quarried marble green
as the hills of Donegal. But soon, God willing,
foundations will be laid, the faithful will come,
and hymns will rise, solid as vaults and spires,
limpid as the clerestory of heaven.
—Originally published in Angle
GREEN HEAVEN
The heart in its bone-house dreams of love
and time, of quiet days and star-shot nights.
It wants a green hill so far away
and high among the rocks that death is lost
on trackless scree and wanders in the waste
forever. And here, where children never die,
where loss and pain are banished, I’d build
a new house of simple stone and timber.
We’d pull our chairs before the fire, its blush
proof against all chills. I’d clear my throat
and hold your hand. We’d read the only book
we owned, the one whose story never ends.
—Originally published in Angle
SLOW APOCOLYPSE
And so, that’s it. The kitchen light is dead,
the dog is fed and watered, and all the locks
are turned against the coming night. There’s time
to climb the stairs and open drapes, time
and light enough to read a final book—
but which?—and time to hold you close, this hush
more fit than words we’ve said before, more sweet
than any last gasp passion. We turn
to watch the tumbling sun and know that soon
the sky, a spangled blue-black rug, will roll
itself up, revealing graying boards beneath.
And the moon, wrapped in gauze and packed away,
will hoard its feeble light as you and I
lie side-by-side and listen to the world,
its mainspring winding down. The earth turns slowly,
as crickets cease, one by one, to sing.
We breathe into the empty house, our peace
complete, our joy a brief and fragile thing.
—Originally published in American Literary Review