My life

Is a butcher’s block

of  the dullest

paring knives.

I am so strange

not because

I tossed

a box of donuts

out the car window

for the possums’ and raccoons’

tea party.

No,

it’s because I shouted

after them,

“You’re welcome!”

Sigh.

And as long as I know

the lighting bugs

will join in,

then all is well.

Or it might be.

 

I remember being trained,

once upon a time,

to reflect on the sweet day

ahead of me and behind, too,

and to my left

and to my right

and all around

and around.

I was called upon to

turn my hands

to the work at hand.

Warning:

Step soft over thresholds

Such as these.

 

I remember once

the dogs were out

all night

chasing a blood moon.

The look in their

eager faces

when I let them in

told me,

“Nothing, master.”

Yet…

red-smudged muzzles

told me

They had found something

almost as good.

 

I hope you find that

these words

are not lies

any more than a metaphor

is a lie.

 

I dreamt of a

wounded stone.

It had a cut,

deep and gaping

and bloodless

across its smooth, hard flesh.

My job was to close

and heal the cut.

How was I to heal

A wounded stone?

I put some salve on it

and pushed the margins together

in dreamtime

till the glue held.

The stone healed,

but it scarred.

 

Every day we live,

we are sailing toward

that undiscovered country.

When we land,

let us explore

that whirring of

hummingbird truth,

that wind chime with

one hand pushing,

that half of a ‘whippoorwill’ call

in the deep woods

filling my cupped hand

with querulous tunes:

all mysteries

in the heart

of the night—

moon-staked.