People with 
full face beards and
hollow cheeks; people

of glitter and loud 
music, of difference and
fragrance unlike yours, people

who seem to represent
luxury overlaid
on poverty —

you are not certain of how
to label them: male, female, 
rich, poor? They are certainly

people: grim people,
angry people, or maybe
simply worried people —

see the way their eyes
move above their beards.
See them flick back and forth

from you, to their neighbors, 
back to you, wondering
what you are thinking,

looking for safety among those 
like them. It has been
a hard world, after all,

and full beards cannot hide
hollow cheeks, or fear,
forever. You are

not certain of how
to label them?
Do not. It is

one small thing
you can do
in a vicious world.

Hands, fantastic
element I adore;
touch, medicine
against my eternal
submergence;

skin upon skin, preservation
I cannot offer to myself,
though salvation lies beyond
that moment of submission
to perfection; 

eyes, beloved
altars; sound
of conjoined breathing
rising and slowing,
a chant in the cathedral.

I long for such divinity
as if I would be lost forever
without it. I lose myself
for it, find myself beyond it:
here I am. Thus, I am.

Where is the center?

There were solid dreams there once.
It held stone and tree;
sheltered fox, eagle, and all the hope
of the ocean.
It was the paradox of sky above us
whose origin is in our depths.

We sold it cheap for false peace.
Handed it off for promises of distant wealth. 

In its place, a deep hole light can’t crack. 
A cavern that once held a molten core
now glimmers with rime ice.

When the wind whistles
across the mouth of that pit?
What a thin dirge.
We pass through, singing along.

When we catch each others’ eyes,
it’s all we can do to stifle our screams.

A corrosion of our shared faith
in how sunrise should feel
to a night chilled face.

A wasting disease
of our individual hopes: failing, wilting,
drained of heat and blood.

An injury to the bones.
An insult to the stones
below our feet. A consummation

of historical tangles
of wrong paths and missteps
and mythic levels of stubborn denial

leashed to pure and wholesome
Evil. It puts words
into our mouths no one

fully understands,
but we speak them
anyway. In this ending,

all words trend toward
inscrutability. Confused,
sunrise stumbles on without us.

When you get to
the end of your rope,
tie a knot and hold on. 

By which is meant,
you’ve got to let it go
if you are going to tie it.

Which means of course
you’ve got to let go
and let God.

Which means
you have to have faith that the same God
who created and established gravity 

will suspend it just for you 
this one time just so you can tie that knot
and hold on.