I’ll Listen Closer

I’ll Listen Closer

(“He makes sure that orphans and widows are treated fairly; he loves the foreigners who live with our people, and gives them food and clothes.” Deuteronomy 10:18)

There are signboards on the corner
that write off every unrecognizable name.
But every name has a mother, every appellation
a definition. Every pair of eyes sees the
spectrum,
every mouth speaks its native tongue.

I’ll speak slower if I’m hard to understand,
I’ll listen closer if your words are sifted through the colander.
I love the unknown rhythm your words make when
you punctuate your sentences with a countryman.
You smiled when you showed me the videos you
made with your newest drone.
Your wife interpreted for me that, yes, you could
fix the problem with my MG.
I tried to pay you, I did. You laughed and I
think you said
it was nothing. But it was more than that and
you deserved even more than I offered.

You tinkered like a magician,
you laughed like a penguin,
you talked like we were brothers,
you sang without knowing the words.
I believed you like a clergyman,
I smiled like an old friend,
I talked like we were comrades,
I sang without knowing the words.

Now I’m older, but not by much,
and you are just the same.
Our languages are mixed,
our friendship exists despite the
placards that try to send you home.

Beyond Daylight

Beyond Daylight

(“Father of orphans and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.” Psalm 68:5)

Above the daylight of designer labels,
beyond the sound of battleground buyouts
the remaining world exists, third and fourth and more,
far beyond the normal ear’s hearing and the sight
of the never-blind.

All along the boulevard
names and cuisine are created from French phrases;
at each will-lit corner
near-cold is wrapped with a thousand embraces from
a closet of cloaks for each occasion, and an extra for
the wet days when there is no time to dry clean.
Midtown or forgotten peasantry on parched eyes,
 the dark and dense bread rests on
the stone at the corner of the room. Another procession
of days threatens to shrink the brittle bit of existence
gleaned beneath normal snacks and meals.

Birdwatchers stroll the park, dressed-up pets bark
at bikers and joggers squeezing in time.
Another ear hears the flap of quail far from
the avenues and well-trimmed perimeters, and
trusts the sling to bring home enough to roast
for another week. It took all day from light to
half-moon shadow.

Earth is dust, the ocean’s rough and deep,
beyond the reach of sticks and stones.
Bare skin gives way to sun, tender young to crust,
sunken eyes, plump to shapeless bones.

Beyond the daylight a forgotten orphan,
above the sound a shadowless widow,
the Kingdom of Heaven rules, then and now and more,
far above the dusty silk and linen; Father
of all, King of the poor, erases the names
of labels and cuisine.

The Father of all, everyman’s King is seen
spending the day in the heat, the night at the feet
of children whose father left to hunt bread or game
and, so they told Him, has not yet returned.