I said to my soul, be still
and wait without hope,
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing;
wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing;
there is yet faith,
But the faith and love and hope
are all in the waiting;
Wait without thought,
for you are not ready for thought;
So the darkness shall be the light,
and the stillness the dancing.
at day's end
we notice our salted skin
(how it clings and crusts as silt deposits)
touch lightly the tomato-red sheen in that space just below the eyes.
Wearied bodies. Sticking flesh. Warmed and weighted eyes. The smell of ourselves.
We are caked with the soil that draws up seeds to plants
and the dampnesses that quench them.
The water runs off us, coffee rich against the porcelain sink.
Who was it that likened sin to dirt? Who declared purity a vast white void?
Who never noticed the gospel of a body
in the summer
at day's end?