The Last Day of Pleading

You've carried around the reproach
long enough in all this brackish longing
until the ghastly broadcast

permeates the nostrils,
every sensibility,
and offers divination

as a solution to the question
of where the soul belongs;
a sacrifice.

You've carried around the reproach
in a wheelbarrow
because the sin you found
is too heavy to lift

even with a strong back
pleading to be yoked to God.

The angels have given up their vigil
and have gone back to their gardens
to tend the sweet lavender of slumber
and to press you into deeper service

once you finally awaken
and the inquisition of the mind
yields to the wisdom of the heart.

Nightfall

The longest night is full
of sweet lullabies,

polite and skittish
in all this darkness
like shopworn lovers who forget
the language of the heart.

Stars are brusque in this land of sleeping
where the charred blackness of the sky
roosts with a certain
anticipation of the clamor
of a deeper dawn.

In this solitude
the question isn't
how much time has passed.

The question is
how much trust
was withdrawn

when Hope lost her way
and she had to walk blindly

with only the sound of her breath
to keep her from surrendering
to the panic that comes
at the sound of our own
vacant and echoing footsteps
at the edge of every nightfall.