break.

in time
proud, graven cliff
worn
years of yesterdays
every wind and wave
is sand in the sea
washed to the four corners

single, solitary
bone of the earth
it…disappears
only to reappear
everywhere

I am a gear
outside of time
a cog enmeshed
in a bigger picture
painted while painting
I am a star
in a background sky
before and behind
darkening clouds
hung among other sons
strung among daughters
following a made course
I remake along the way

Shhhhh…
quiet sweeps the flood
across this brutal world
gathering the small hearts
in its killing embrace
taking us all
to our final resting place
at night when the sun has set
where we will dance as little ones
before the waning moon

what weak wall am i
what shelter for my littlest
from the evil tide that pours
through all my ragged rips
runs through my wounds
and past my grasping fingertips
to drown them before my eyes

how is a father to keep
all his small hearts safe
from broken reaching hands
without killing the whole world…
i want to kill the whole brutal world

this night world
the prairie world
away from metropolitan
away from civilization
as many would know it
it hums and buzzes
there are eternal wheels rolling
wearing down thin asphalt
while halogen lamps whine
to light this small darkness

there is no quiet place
no silent place
only a wavering sea of sound
ebbing waves pulled like sonic tides
by the sheer gravity of us
we towns and cities
we clustered and bound moons
across an eroding earth

sometimes the thread-bare tears
in this thin skin
make themselves known
in the strangest ways
like a light pierced shadow
or pain in the unexpected moments
a stopped heart beat
that weighs ache-hard inside

i would rather the wild wind
lift this frame – a kite lost to the skies
then blast through the holes

this road
it ends, it ends
a ways away
tomorrow or
today
but not before
the undone’s done
pray
not before
the setting sun
casts a last shadow
along the space
between my feet
and the hearts
I wish to keep

“Our Father”
is lifted like a white flag
again and again and again
words flung to the abyss
like torn, falling fingertips
scrabbling for any hold
on the grey cliff that races past
to “the glory” and beyond
to the “Amen”…
that long, prolonged Amen
a waiting wish that it may be
– may it be –
a strained Amen that waits
like a hand held above the water’s edge