Returning to Words

Every farmer knows enough

to let her fields sit fallow for a time,

to leave the earth alone in her own bed

without the urgent needs of the harvest

calling her to task.

This thin time quakes with longing,

surges with God’s voice in prayers

for something more

to awaken from the marrow

in the Beloved’s bones.

In this narrow place of returning to words,

the poet reclines, sated and naked,

stripped down by time and timid

looking at the white skin of the page,

perhaps exploring the curves

of her own body of knowledge,

touching each vowel tenderly,

letting the lips of some new line

kiss her.

It is so quiet in this place

between desire and consecration

that anyone would believe

whatever whisper

is delivered by the muse.