Rainy Season -- Day 14

Tonight
it will be just the city and I. 
Just a street lamp dripping dew
and giving me silver and gold light
tonight. 
No moon face to remind me
of beauties far away,
of loves unattainable. 
No shattered shards of space-stuff
to dirty my view of the sky. 
No constellations in the shape
of faces we mourn. 
And no angels.  No.
The choir is at rest. 
It will be just the city and I,
and a blank slate sky. 
The hills send me fog to touch. 
The sky sends the rain. 
They sing to me till I wake in the morning
when my city will be new again.

---

My city is new today.
It has forgotten, for a time,
its heartbreak.  Its loss.
It has spent its allotted time weeping.
It has bathed itself inside a moon house
made of thunderstorms and mist.
It has flushed out
even its most private of crevices
and stepped out renewed.
My city is pure again.

The dirt of its streets
has been washed away. 
Not simply swept aside but driven
out by spontaneous rivers. 
Driven out past the hills,
carried over the valleys,
and swept out to sea. 
My city's houses are still damp. 
This is alright with us. 
Let the warmth of home dry them out. 
Let our bare feet feel mud again. 
Let the bucket tip
and the mop sop and soak
and sweep out even the insides. 
Let the city be clean today.

Let the parks know
that they haven't been forgotten. 
Let the grass be cut and mixed
with warm breezes and sunshine. 
And of the perfume made,
let it be the bouquet of
just-budding flowers
from full, verdant trees. 
Only, do not place the oil
behind the ears of the city
or between the breasts of the city. 
These secret places are for us
that have found them intimately. 
Do not let it drip down arms like juice
from the fruit of your neighbor's yard. 
Do not let it spray along cheeks like juice
from fruit of your own yard. 
Let it waft, instead, across the body
and through the streets.

If the city is as leaving Eden;
innocent, naked, and pure
but just for today;
then let this perfume be as entering Nod:
east of nowhere,
wandering everywhere.

The Only Reason I Would Attend a Cricket Match

I want to kiss you
under hot sun, spinning in
a crowd of thousands.

Rainy Season -- Day 13

[Pallbearers by Br. Lawrence Lew, O.P.]

[The Pallbearer Reflects]

Death in the morning makes a poor breakfast. 
Makes you never want to eat again.

We ask ourselves 'Were they always so small? 
So light? 
I remember a much taller man.
I remember a woman made of stone.' 
And the grave, why so huge? 
If we could could slide our dead
between the spaces in the rocks
or fold them
neatly
into crab holes,
if we didn't have to dig graves in the ground
as big as the spaces in our hearts
and in stead just let the marching ants
handle the procession,
then what would man do with all this grief? 
We can't really walk around with it. 
We can't really walk at all. 
Its too great a thing, this rock of sorrow
on our chests,
weighing down our ribs
and only letting us breathe deep enough
to shudder,
to weep again. 
These chains make our hands useless
except for wringing. 
These feet are bound to pacing
through halls and empty bedrooms
like ghosts. 
And at that point
we might as well be.

Rainy Season -- Day 8

[The Sound of its Own Stillness by Otto K.]


It is quiet in here.
It is loud with the sound of humming
It is cold in here.
My skin is wet.
But I am warm.
And if I could live and live
until the day I choose to die
then I would choose a day like this.
With a heavy blanket of rainclouds
weightless in the sky
to keep my cooling body dry.

Fairy Tale

Once upon a time
I would say something
and somehow your heart
would know my meaning.
It was back when
men knew the names of their Gods
and there were dragons in the earth.