God goes into Dark Places

 

 

 

August

always gets like this,
kind of breathless
by the end.

Leaves begin to hang heavy

under the weight of simmering sun.
Narrow saplings,
lacey cedars,
wide wise maples

write many books,

and when their pages begin to burn
words fly--

--and fall,

thus God

goes into dark places
dreaming of new things.

Consider the worm

testing for a softer consistency
in space between mass,  
cracks, and twigs, and harder things,
leaving moist paths.

Think of sow bugs in armor,
spiders on the roof
and all that’s under,

the sound of all the material

of the physical realm
finally losing its borders,

our names sinking into the ground,

our faces pressing the mud,

our breath rising.

All things fall from gravity, here.
In the end the air coming from us
is the only thing going up
before seeds open.

Before ice creeps with many voices

into bulging streams.

Consider if you fear the end of summer,

life without fall.
How weary life if all things
lived on without emotion,
bored with perfection,
never an old dog,

or a dirt road to follow.

Give me the fog
and her gray ghosts
thinning into invisible
when early sunflower
combs trees.

Rest without effort

is like a child never gaining wisdom.

Who can follow a road without hills,

would hunger egg you on
without fire inside your eyes?

Let your gaze fall into the details,

speak the story behind
every bright occurrence.
Life is brief, a fish with rainbows and thunder.
A song, made up as you go along,
like we sing to babies.

Where is the ruby tucked?

Where are the lost things
coming back to you?
Here. Here.
Here.

Consider before you go

home is closest
when mind is wide
and unsearching,

remember the child of your eyes
and fingers when everything was new.

God goes into dark places

putting all the pieces of you
into many pockets;
you the little clay.






c2013 T.L. Stokes (all rights reserved)