What words will we have left, that break the day?
when burning leaves stroke smokeless in our hair
and scratch along the porch? What will we say
against the rolling frame of a rocking chair
to salt a season to death with human words,
or exalt tired arthritic hands to share
the Eucharist with weathered faith-winged birds?
Succumb our bodies to the harvest prayer?
I trust with tattered jeans on shriveled knees
and coffee mugs on railings do starve grey days
still lost in sacraments of skin, when trees
embraced in ember leaves the sun-torched glaze
of tongue on tasted word—until the ears
that hear I love you burn with honored years.
to salt a season to death with human words,
or exalt tired arthritic hands to share
the Eucharist with weathered faith-winged birds?
Succumb our bodies to the harvest prayer?
I trust with tattered jeans on shriveled knees
and coffee mugs on railings do starve grey days
still lost in sacraments of skin, when trees
embraced in ember leaves the sun-torched glaze
of tongue on tasted word—until the ears
that hear I love you burn with honored years.
© May 2009
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