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.
