Verbs Like Green

Verbs Like Green

(“But as for you, return to your God, hold fast to mercy and justice, and wait on your God continually.” Hosea 12:6)

What if there was a new name for everything;
not verbs like
green or
running. And have you caught your limit yet?

What if hills were lions’ manes, the clouds fastened to
nursery rhymes?
What if Saturn’s rings were alligator dreams, the stars
tethered to geothermal springs?

What if no one was king, what if you were circular?
What if fences were holes in our theories? What if
space/time was clearly a one-way street?
What if the universe is on virtual repeat,
the daylight a single page in a book?
What if everything shook loose until
random was sequential, rational was inclusive,
geology was playful and
immigrants ruled the world?

I won’t say love should be defined,
I won’t say wine should be refined,
I won’t author definitions,
I won’t offer explanations.

I won’t be I. I won’t. I want to
be we. I want. We.

What if we are stick figures drawn
by a kindergarten class.
What if every notion was our last, every
first a cats-eye marble left by
debaters who decided

There could be a new name for

Nearly

Everything.

Inside the Loop

 

Inside the Loop

(“The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; and they have gone down into the person’s innermost being.” Proverbs 18:8)

They told me my soul was impounded;
I heard the news from reliable sources
and paid the fines plus taxes plus surcharges
plus a fraction more to unlock the door
the story-teller broke with his insistence
that no other tale could be truer
than the tale he wove.

It loomed from parking lots to garages.

The room I had saved for glorious days
was suddenly crammed with hoarded bits
I had heard
from officers-in-charge,
authors of books
and
radio hosts who swore
their knowledge was inside the loop
(the loop I longed to encircle me too.)

Those stories bloated me, leaking out the pores
of my skin
until I thought I believed in every secret scheme
that only the faithful and redeemed knew
out of tune,
out of mind.

What have you cooked up for me this time?
Shall we blame the demons, the seasons,
the curses--or worse--the fatality I was born into?

But now that sunset is approaching
I’m unwinding Once Upon a Time
from
Happily Ever After
and telling the fable that is in front of me,
and filling the table with discoveries
I have made on my own.

I’ll trust the last line, the afterword,
the seldom heard and sublime word
to the Author of starlight and verbs.