even the dark is not dark
to you
even night is as the day we first met
we sometimes encounter avulsion
grinding compression
by weight by steel wheels passing
over chest and limbs lead metal and glass
tearing the skin the margins irregular uneven
yet we were married in a single knowing
light quantum borne in electrons
at night her instep touched to my calf the arch of her
ribs your handiwork in my hands
networks of stars
and a breath
vii.1
healthy cells are different than ill cells
light being more contained in health less fractured
light are your kisses o God
light are the kisses of your mouth
harmonize us
o marry us
to each other
to the world and you
in your memory we are no longer at war here or overseas the city a melody
like larksong like mountain bluejays humming in the trees over sylvan lake
let him kiss me with the kisses she says of his mouth
for your love is wine
mystic and east rosebud lie in the beartooth range where the absaroka wilderness
sets the yellowstone north to the missouri then south to the gulf of mexico
vii.2
we want to be done
with cutting and killing ourselves
we want to usher the beast into and out of our hearts
i believe we are all abandoned
all loved
immanuel means God with us and we burn like stars
crippled hydrogen atoms no longer absorb or emit light
but can be resurrected by choice
deep tissue unevenly divided
foreign bodies in the wound
a curved laceration made of rock or water
the skin torn free or undermined
blood is life that’s why we carry small stones in our pockets
and set them in the vault of heaven
vii.3
cut edges are normally clean
length greater than width the wound usually
spindle shaped leaving more blood on the long plain before the great mountains
where the genocided women walk with lanterns alongside those who delivered genocide
women and men loved whole in the house made of dawn
your miracles reside in montana
and in the bedroom where momaday sleeps
every day i see my cousin jacine
and my brother and me holding hands over the river the summer before she died
jacine wore the shirt of flame so did charlie calf robe paul deputy and bobby jones
who hung himself while the other three were shot or bludgeoned to death and my teacher said we
all wear the shirt of flame making me pause some more than others some so much more how is it
i was deeply loved by them i still don’t know but that’s why i cry into the wooden bowl
of my hands o God the motherless empty the fatherless hungry dismay so dark in my jawbone
vii.4
clubbing instruments cause skull fractures fissured depressed comminuted
the skull inbuckled the bones broken in several places
near here is the town where children were gassed to death or burned in industrial ovens
human bodies burn readily the hands and feet drop off under sudden intense heat
all men young and old in broad daylight three bullets each head chest chest murder
in the house of dawn which is your house
on a long hill outside prague your miracles hidden in roses
symphonic atoms rosettes of nuclear light in the wrist bones of those dead in the garden
of friendship and peace in the shadows where the children of my grandmother’s massacred ones
hold hands with the children of those who massacred them
my children of peace with me my children of war planting
a hundred thousand roses again o wounds of God with us always
my God Christ where is my wife where are my children
vii.5
-for Marie Uchytilová
dear God our nameless one
we love our daughters and sons
but do not let us forsake our fathers
o name above all names
let us love them with electromagnetic gravitational force both weak and strong
for forsaking them we forsake ourselves each father understood
as the dynamics of a field the cut is deeper at entry due to greater pressure the head leads
to the tailing a blade entered obliquely bevels one edge at the other’s expense
o let us love them
the strong nuclear force binds protons and neutrons into atomic nuclei
for atomic life absorbs light but a horizontal blade causes a flap wound
Lord let us go to them with joy in our eyes preparing them for death by asking forgiveness and
by forgiving them their tritium boosting their double yield so they can die knowing we love them
vii.6
you sense us she and i brought to blossom
with you we don’t live by ourselves
and we don’t die alone either
beauty like smoke through the doorway
of worlds beyond division we die with each
other and happily the images we make of you are nothing
compared to the bodies you give us
light waves loops and strings light bullets
portable never-ending we walk and
fly like wind night dawn o numinous mysterium tremendum
et fascinans et flame the ultimate danger fear-invoking
fear-transcending merciful compassionate your touch the press of my hand
to her forehead and hips the zenith of her ribs
her curved bones set over the opening you made for the infinite
vii.7
-for Rudolf Otto
in the beginning
a burden of water a veil of light
the word was a cyclone at the edge of the eye
a chop wound a blow with the cutting end of a heavy instrument
an axe a butcher knife a machete a sword
the margins sharp and deep john the son of thunder said the weak interaction
is radioactive decay is essential the word was love was light was God
essential nuclear fission and fusion with God all things came into being
apart from God nothing came into being that has come into being
the word a continuous range of electromagnetic gravitational energy
heat color light of the snail’s nautilus o crown rack of bull elk
the neckline the life
the light shines in a darkness the darkness cannot comprehend
cannot overcome
vii.8
our mothers are your mother
with sacred heart ablaze
and my father as he moves through ancient mountains
fir and lodgepole above clear rivers below black skies
you the storm we flee the storm we return to
rainsoaked running the gorge
at pine creek in the beartooth wilderness where lightning rings
from canyon walls and our mouths eat fire
the magnitude of your love still frightens us
i’ve met too many old pale men who say Christ
is with them but treat their mothers ugly
their wives and daughters along with their country
the velocity of light is 300,000 km (186,000 miles) per second
the gravitational force attracts anything with mass
vii.9
but blessed are those who listen
to the poverty of wildflowers
and find
night so near dawn
over a dismembered animal bears still remember
the bugle bloom about to shout and
how penetrating wounds puncture the body cavity
tissue and muscle
sinew and joints and bone
but unlike bears we forget how the night shines
and we go about forgetting the force manifest
in electric fields magnetic fields
and light
fated by need we imprint violence too
vii.10
-for Louise Erdrich and Mary Oliver
in the darkness she and i thank you
and we listen to each other so now that we’re older
she still presses her face to mine
and i still lay my head on her chest asking her as we die
where are you going hearing her say i’m going to God
where what is least familiar is most named
and what is most sublime is least comprehended
at night i cup my hand to the back of her head
the line of her jaw
our worldskin a dark conflation of night and light
so when she looks into me i see you
with my name hidden she draws herself over me
and kisses me and we both soon slumber
your beauty our night all light
vii.11
Like this post? Subscribe to have new posts sent to you by email the same day they are posted.
Leave a Reply