A curtain pulled back
reveals the lie

that there is
an outside. I know

better.  All there is
is an inside — this view of

a “window”
is an extension of

that lie.  It suggests
an exit may be possible

when in fact all there is
is more of this cell.

Now a “door”
is being “opened.”

Even as I step through into
alleged downpour

or supposed
scalding sun, I am

being lied to: nothing
of the false outside

touches me here,
centered in cold stone

and lockdown.
This is

my weather, climate,
forecast. There is

no other — I’ve been
outside to see and

there is no outside.
None. You can

stop. Just stop —
I don’t like being lied to.

After all these years
I know:

there’s no window
and no door.

It’s too early,
the body says,
to be up
and considering
brain and soul work,
especially this current
irritating obsession with 
God-work.
The body says

it’s time
to fall
back to agnostic sleep,
to worry
about all that
later; the body says,
“take care of me,” says

it’s time to roll over
and away from the stinging
hymn that’s trying to come out
of mouth or hands
into the growing daylight.

So I turn over and try
to fall back into sleep
though I know 

that the song
will be in there
with me, like a bad
mattress or pillow,
giving me pain
in the place where I keep
my definitions.

If I succeed
in getting more sleep
it’s going to hurt
as much as if
I stay awake wrestling
with it —

God, it all hurts 
all the time. It all
hurts from bruised hip
to cranked neck
and deep into the back
of my dearest names
for myself

but it’s too early 
to think about this;

I don’t want to think about
any of this
until I’m dead but the body
won’t stop saying

“not yet.”

From the window
I can see Pound Hill.  
That’s where God
lived before She moved
to Far Mountain on the
opposite horizon.
She left a ghost 
behind to watch the place
and keep in touch with us.
We go there only
when called,

crossing over
the sacred boundary
called Silver Creek, careful not
to dip more than a toe
or else we have to go
all the way back
and start over.

Once over safely,
it’s a slow walk only,
no running no matter
what God and Her Ghost
show us — and oh, the pain

if we’re not holding flowers
picked from the far meadow,
under the shade
of the Tree.

It’s all worth it
to go through
that and be home
and look out the window
toward Pound Hill
over Silver Creek and know
we went and saw and heard.

Sometimes in Winter
I see the stone church
of my neighbors through
the bare branches,
hear them singing

for a God
they can only imagine.
A God locked
in an impressive heaven
many miles away.
They mention a Holy Land
now and then, its hills,
its rivers, but most 
have never seen it; it’s

so, so sad.