They were hoodled
against
the frost and crossed
against
the light
across
the path of the officers
who—
jackets unzipped
—pulled to the side,
searched pockets
and coats for
evidence
they weren’t white
enough to saunter
through the cold.
Tag: sorrow
-
-
I cannot draw
but I did
my best to gild
the functional canvas of
his
field-trip lunch sacks
with apple trees and
iron gates and
atoms and books.(It was the only way
I could be
there and anyway
PB&J
is boring enough.)The truth wasn’t,
though.
Needed neither apples nor atoms
to make it
any more
there
but we can’t help
ourselves with
such scintillating sin.(We save our
sharpest
crayons for the
cleanest
lines of our
deepest
fears.)Still
I wanted to draw
that Sunday,
as someone stood
in your stead,
the way you were:
hands raised in blessing
bouncing on your feet
so willing to
love
us and me and them and
him
as God so
loved
the world
with, surely, angels
at your side and behind
and around.But I could only
see a darkness
billow from
organ pipes
to claim your shadow,
sneak from
under choir robes
wrap your wrists
(again)
in chains and
the laughter couldn’t’ve
been yours because you
were screaming
as its claws sunk beneath
your soul.So instead
I wept
because I have such trouble
drawing hands. -
I.
Strange, to say that a mother
has
‘lost’
her baby.
That such a wonder could be mis
-placed; such a love,
so careless.It implies guilt and fault,
a moment
of inattention in
a moment
when there is anything
but.Though who dares? Who brave or soulless
enough to speak the actual words thatA.
Child.
Has.
Died.To name the thing? Give face to the fear;
voice to the dark?Except the curse has fallen
without having been spoken.
A breathless and wordless strike.
No word, no breath,
could have or did have
stopped it,
despite our most loquacious prayers
which, in the end, were nameless.II.
This loss runs contrary
to expectations
that our children
(a child)
are
(is)
innocent and inviolately safe because
we are there, inviolating.For surely Joseph, just a man,
just a father,
was tense in his stabled vigil,
keeping watch of the sheep and ass and cattle
for signs of sudden movement.
Hooves behind this line because
this child is mine.Son of God, yes; yet, too, Son of Joseph.
(Who was told the name, but
was he who gave it.)Sent to protect but, first,
to be im/perfectly protected.Our protection, in the end, is never enough.
III.
As, in less than a moment, did God speak
the Word,
so did your soul-spark catch and flame;
soft and sublime.
A light where there had been none.As, in that un-moment, all that was/is/will be
flowered and filled Creation,
so did you expand and collide in measured beats
to become.And so are you conserved.
Neither created nor destroyed,
neither present nor absent.What has been named cannot be unnamed.
What dreamed, unseen.
What loved, in the end,lost.
(Image credit: NASA, ESA; Acknowledgement: A. Aloisi [Space Telescope Science Institute])