THE FIT

It’s not too easy to trim
The pileated woodpecker to a poem
Because the long beak and the name
Won’t fit a convenient frame

But the beak shims under the bark
Where the cold-stunned beetles lurk
And the long bill rings in its work
In the sap-vacated dark

With a stiff and a scarlet crest
And a white splash on its breast
It circles the tree trunks lest
You prove a catching pest

Two thirds the size of a crow
Wary of watchers below
It sounds like an axman’s blow
In the darkening woods and the snow

BLACK VIRGIN

The Black Madonna of Częstochowa
Jasna Gora Monastery
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

She whose face is chestnut stained
By earth and smoke of wax
Face defaced by splint and blade
The slashing of an ax

Who am I? What face? I asked
She showed me who I am—
A silver frame around my life
Around her murdered Son

There’s your soul’s identity
Made full within the frame
From birth’s beginning to the end
Single as you came

A shape you have, good deeds and blame
All for a silver penny,
Though thirty bought the life of Him
Who had no use for money

Grief is mine, the black one said,
Congeals around the heart
And yet the blood of He who waits
Bleeds bright against the dark

The devil sits down at Cova da Iria, reading his breviary
(His is the same as yours, but he reads the prayers with envy)
As rain comes spattering down, the oak tree shivers
Only the hope of the sodden faithless withers

“Noon, and the Lady has not arrived,” observes the priest,
Whose face is clever, paper skin not creased—
The minute hand creeps forward by a shadow
As he speaks to Lucia, Jacinta, and Francisco

“See, the lady whom you speak of does not arrive—
Mid-day, your prophecy is false, your hope contrived,
Go home, dear children, there will be no sign.”
He set the watch ahead of noon, he is malign

But when the sign appears the mimic priest has gone
Not seen again, this smooth deceptive one,
But he will come again to urge despair
When heaven even then has answered desperate prayer

LATE SUMMER

A Cicada Meets Its Fate
Photo by Pavel Chichikov

Cicadas ring the sistrum! Late summer ends.
The children of the risen take their beds
Between the roots, in cold death

Grit and rhizome cover all—
Bodies sink! The earth absorbs you, fall
Into a long sleep and sunlessness,

False death that rises ever
Sleeps and wanes and then
They move beneath the earthen sun

They stir and twitch and climb the buried foot
So those that slept beside a root
A great tree win

And here in earth’s late summer leave the old
The carapace, the empty mold
With eyes translucent—ring!

AUTUMN IS A HOLY TOWN

Fall in Pennsylvania
Courtesy PennLive and Pinterest

The mitten leaves of sassafras
Golden blades of hickory
Maple scarred with autumn casts,
Acid yellow psalmody

Design, desire all of this
Turn the clockwise sun around,
The towers of basilicas—
Autumn is a holy town

Who lives here? Awnings gone,
Deserted boulevards of oak
Except the bronze and scarlet tones,
The bells of leaves that autumn spoke

Out of center grows a dream
Spotted with the scars of leaves,
Tiles across the slanted beams,
Masses of the holy trees

Ending prayer, descending now
Spelled the tongueless world to pray,
And those who go upon it walk
Soundlessly away

THE FIT

It’s not too easy to trim
The pileated woodpecker to a poem
Because the long beak and the name
Won’t fit a convenient frame

But the beak shims under the bark
Where the cold-stunned beetles lurk
And the long bill rings in its work
In the sap-vacated dark

With a stiff and a scarlet crest
And a white splash on its breast
It circles the tree trunks lest
You prove a catching pest

Two thirds the size of a crow
Wary of watchers below
It sounds like an axman’s blow
In the darkening woods and the snow

FLOW

Paul Torres (Contemporary), “Back to Eden”
Courtesy Fine Art America

The Garden has missed us—where have they gone?
Say the four rivers—Pishon and Gihon,
Tigris, Euphrates that rise in the west
Where all of the sunset lands are distressed

Hyacinth droops, the petals are curled
On stems that have grown from the underworld,
Willows throw down their elongated leaves,
Mourners who tear at their tunics and sleeves

Evening shadows are muddied and dull
The colors of blossoms and flowers annul,
Silence and emptiness, nothing has voice,
Moves from its place, is aware to rejoice

Master and Mistress are banished and fled
Time is locked up in this place of the dead,
And yet as the Maker is risen from clay
They whom He made will return here some day

The garden will move with the beasts of the wing
Wind in the leaves will provoke them to sing,
The rivers will flow through the portals of Hades,
Pishon and Gihon, the Tigris, Euphrates

THE KEY

Edith Catlin Phelps (1874-1961), “Wayside Madonna”
Courtesy Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, CA

Lady, the good ones were on their knees
They know you and adore you
Those with bones not steel who bend
Came forward

I saw you with a shopping cart
Wire and small wheels
Your clothing in the square pink bag
You kept your Baby’s diapers in

You wore a surplus windproof jacket
Deck shoes, and a billed blue hat
You wondered why the tilma was so small
When Juan Diego’s covered to his knees

It covered him, and when the roses spilled
They saw your image there, and it was you
Beautiful Azteca woman
Not so worn out then

Your Son has risen from the tomb,
But since that day you’ve slept on many sidewalks—
You come down from the hill of roses
Live poorly in the house of summer

The crèche He slept in has been folded up,
Such is your timid power,
In a little plastic bag you carry—
Lady, good ones know it

The simple see you, magnificent your softness
Your summoned mercy, quick to answer anguish
For they can bend and have no pride
No keys but one

And with this key, one key
They open every door that leads to Him—
You could walk through and though you wear a crown
You wait until the last have entered

PLAIN SIGHT

Doe in Bushes; Photo by Chris F.
Courtesy Pexels

A weedy young doe looks out from behind
The second green growth in a ragged field,
Her ears like mule’s or a large tan rabbit’s

First her ears, then nought but green
Her large black eyes, then nodding muzzle
The curve of her neck, but never the whole

She’s hidden like God, concealed in plain sight
Funny and yet completely wild
Timid and yet untameable