Grace

Red-winged blackbird by Ron Knight, via Flickr Commons

… knock and it shall be opened unto you.
—Matthew 7:7

The sky
has turned a thousand starlings down upon my lawn to sift the grass
for seed, a dance of shuffle and shrug. Now, as one, they lift
to line the easement’s naked limbs like spoiled fruit,
                                                                    and slump there—
                                        indeterminate lumps
               with mock in their eyes,
back-lit by
a white-board heaven bearing only the smear of erasure. No message.
Nothing ahead, I tell myself, but blight and ordeal. And so it is,
when grace arrives, it comes disguised as creaturely ruin,
                                                                     slashing a crimson swath
                                         across my eyes, steeled
               to witness another crime
consistent with
the broad misrule I’ve sworn, in my despondency, my winter heart’s
allegiance to. It comes, and I label it harm. Label it wound. But
as I turn from the glass, it flashes again: a bright-red crest,
                                                                     a hammer-jolt of boldness
                                          brazen on the trunk
               of a hollowed oak,
knocking, knocking.
And then, O, then, light curls, as swift as a ribbon on a scissor blade,
the sky flings open a thousand doors, a thousand blackbirds lift
and wing off, raucous, over the trees, and, in their wake,
                                                                     a lone ladder-back,
                                          unfazed, continues
               his lordly knocking,
on the off-chance
I might heed and, chastened, seize from a clamorous, end-of-the-world
scenario dark with wings, a flag ablaze with pluck, if not victory,
brandished above a simple ladder, lowered, it seems, to me.

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