gracecav@comcast.net

Morning Poem

Each of us has a pond. Mine is deep. I sleep beneath
the water in a silence so clear
the bloom of desire melts from me,
lightning turns fire to the water of pleasure.
Fish are jumping in my heart,
no, they are real fish dreaming of me,
no it is not a dream,
this is a real heart.

For the Faithful

Here are names we belonged to
before we could see:
nothing and tree.
When my eyes woke up
I was quiet by the river
I was lost in the prairie
of my heart
I was running through the forest
of my soul
The world no longer mattered
It was all hunger. It was all motion

I opened my life to this
season of endings
trusting tree and blossom
which will be there after us
just as all is beautiful under the snow.
If we do not understand this,
what is there to understand?
Our final day which begins today
is not what I looked for
but for a moment it entered me
tangled in my flesh.
It is present now. I knew suddenly
what I wanted to tell you.
It is here in this poem. It is holding your hand.

Athletes of God

The first time I saw my American poems translated
I just stopped and studied
the hieroglyphics on the page,
tiny scribbles of black ink
saying twice
what was said before.
Then I knew
I would not leave this world
without loving some of it…
nothing reduced to a single truth…
all of one blood,
our words, music and lives coming together.
It was not that the stars had fallen down –
It was more that we didn’t need
the lamp which had gone out.
How separate we are in the dark
after the poem is gone.