Stooping down

My face over his face, looking at him carefully, 
inspecting iris to iris, nose to nose, 
sniffing, counting seconds between breaths,
seeing a man’s body return to newborn form, 
legs more like arms, pink, hairless. 
Think how firmly these feet once held him
upright, thick as granite, inflexible.
Despite the tremors, the many naps, 
the many days and nights of murmurings, 
he is still handsome in that smart haircut, 
the ancient Yaqui bones contain the blight
and he really doesn't complain too much. 
He is a man who likes to act like a man. 
I stoop down to blow the heat off his face 
and in the house somewhere I hear Out of Africa 
on the radio, his favorite soundtrack, and my whole 
being feels decades drift away like clouds 
over the sharp edge of ancient white plains, 
the stark flatness of our fate, 
wide and bright to the end.

The journey

In the place where the temperature falls

when I step out of the sun

into the dark cyan

shade of the forrest,

when I listen to my shoes crunch flotsam, 

the panting of my lab, the squeaks of flying beings 

high in the crowns,

where trees old and young 

lay across the stream, 

the young ones dying on the backs of their elders

and stumps mourn in gowns of lime green moss

and all around lay fallen leaves in yellow,

burnt umber and brick, and changing colors still,

where even in that state of doom, beauty 

does not abandon them.

This is where I take my grief, 

which is the price of love,

and where in mercy I rest

and let go of fear 

and love the world.

If only

If only God Almighty were not so

insecure. 

What gruesome death that crucifixtion
of any son, of any blood and body 
and why must every soul be offered up?
If only God did not need hell on earth--
if only that everlasting hell could be enough
to satisfy His revenge.
If only He did not demand redemption
for all of humankind, the innocent beside
the evil, but most especially 
by horrific immolation.
If only God could be content.
Withdraw demands for victimhood,
for our extreme obedience.
If only He truly loved as father, mother, friend,
we would not be so afflicted by pestilence, war and famine,
and countless other terrors
by the Him who wants to be exalted
daily for all this misery.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life.

If only.  If only God would come to this.

Dry

Then, one day it is completely gone, 
all the love,
the heart feels empty again, 
bloodless, 
beating barely just for one, 
just for itself alone, 
after all the love 
finally leached,
the heart dries and hardens
--the peach eaten, 
the pit spit out.

It's wrong

We watch it together, the way the sickness robs

his body’s surface, slackens and liquifies 

just as each year the fresh autumn pumpkins

extirpate in summer heat and sink

into grassland.

We have discussed it, we have seen the signs

of the deranging force and we have joked 

about how its witchy extortion hovers in no 

hurry for us, only drifting our way 

with starts and stops, and, we thought its 

descent would always be lethargic, 

we thought we had ample time 

and then late afternoon I was turning on TV

and glanced his way and there it was, kneeling 

by the bed, reaching for him, extorting him 

from the room. But he resists, holds on tightly

to his air, his thinning matter and I watch 

from the chair rocking all night, the extorting 

force crawling around my feet, climbing into 

the bed purring beside him who sweats in sleep 

and I rock and pray to Him I don’t see or know: 

Please do not deploy your power in this way. 

And my faith takes another blow.