birthday poem
i.
there’s the narrow throat warships
haven’t swallowed yet.
& the astronauts are home, still moondrunk,
mouthing the aftertaste of weightlessness.
Budapest unfolds its flag. Lima ballots
the 9th president from a field
of comedians and heirs. An American
pope takes fire from the president.
Easter truce: both sides logged violations
keeping score at Augusta, where McIlroy
eagles the back nine into history,
alone in the lead, six clear.
the crowd pressed the gate @ the Citadelle,
thirty didn’t come back through it.
ii.
There was a year that rivered past me.
Spring. Summer. Autumn.
Just like that.
A smooth stone sunk in the current,
the world white-watering around me.
Seven hundred and fifty words on
the mornings there was nothing left
to body— no shower, no food, just
the pen dragging dark clots across the page.
The pit before Pharaoh. The wilderness
before the ministry. The ash before the
weed that purples through it.
Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium)
decolonizes burn zones, blooms
violent & tall in exactly the ground
most thoroughly destroyed.
iii.
koach: the strength to do the work
before you understand it.
Confucius didn’t say he’d arrived.
He said he’d found his footing—
the ground solid underfoot
for the first time w/o having to think about it.
The strait holds.
The church is built on rock.
Wandering was always preparation.