Grace in a Gray Sky

 

there is grace in a gray sky

drops syncopated, minor notes 

winding, tiny wind-streets for white birds

who live for water

Image courtesy of MaryLynne Wrye, still from I Fly Over, 2022, https://www.marylynnewrye.com/i-fly-over. 

The Faces of Silence

There is the Empty Silence,
when the little hands waving out the car window disappear down the road
and suddenly the home seems a loosely-knit box of nothingness,
and it must be filled by music or the washing of dishes;
when the streets are empty at three am
and there is still a long way to go;
when train times pass, the station suddenly bereft of purpose;
or the long winter months in age or illness.

 

There is the Full Silence, 

when the last note of the piano has dissipated 

on a particularly beautiful piece 

and before the applause begins;

when a crowd is waiting in solidarity 

for the screen to flicker 

and for the talking head to explain; 

or around the dying person’s bedside, 

just as the soul leaves the pupils lax. 

The Holy Spirit revolves around the Fullest Silence: 

when the Logos descends, the Silence grows heavy. 

The priest bends low over the bread and wine, 

his voice lowers into the Secrets: 

the centrifugal Spirit closes in on the altar 

becoming the naval of the universe. 

The bells ring out,

like a best man tapping his wine glass with a knife.

We can match the air of our inner self 

to all those around us and to the still, Silent Lord;

those who have cultivated the silence of the heart 

can answer the golden call.

Dido in Hades

Dido, once me, believed 

love-vows could be witnessed by the storm:

Breaking surf, unbroken, whipping wind

raising a rain shower—

the will of the gods an encircling wave

bringing the torch that the bridegroom gave.

Aeneas, steel, countered: 

"Gods live in the mind and in the storm:

Phoibos' flame transcends the Shaker's swell,

balancing blood's fervor"—

his clear-cut piety a glass to fire,
reveal, and drown my funeral pyre.

I, shade, then existed

so the weather was nothing to me:

Waning sliver-moon, airless, dead night

cloaking a soul inured—

what harrowing God comes now, a flaming turn,

straining my flint-will twixt bend or burn?

The Light Garden

Something about being small children 

in a Himalayan light garden, 

flying our dreams, simple kites, from rooftops,  

goes beyond grief. 

You caught my heart because you were born there, 

among the barren and brown-shouldered mountains, 

a tiny baby like a star in the deep, empty sky. 

Light, falling unbroken by tree or tower, 

fell upon our necks in playful swipes, 

its dance in the endless sky a festival in Eden

for archangels, not for missionary, Western children

rearranging our Western doll houses 

on the empty plateaus below, 

playing fields of vanquished, exiled arch-demons. 

When we left Afghanistan, 

our metal wings hesitantly lifting in the air— 

I dreamt over and over of fire, 

our cradled loves burning back into dirt, 

the curling, tortured remains of houses and hills crying out:

You can never come back.

Like the still waters of Band-e Amir, blue light-catchers, 

you look across at me in the flames, 

the way Afghan eyes still stare within my burning wilderness, 

a look of ancient purity, sorrow mixed with mercy.