Fragments 5

Each morning on our doorstep, flower petals

are arrayed in prayerful patterns. We dispassionately

brush them aside as we walk (her feet soft in moccasins)

until the day's newspaper is found.

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tradition perishes slower than the sun

or else is extinguished in an instant,

more fragile than a firefly

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A soldier walks past storefronts on pristine brick sidewalks.

He is camouflaged so that he need not see himself

unless he is alone.

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a prison is more than locked bars at the door

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one day in the world's dark heart, the Christians

burned a little girl as a witch

while the devil licked his fingers

and played the world's smooth piano keys

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even if the only consequence of oppression

was the formation of group identity,

that alone would necessitate a march to equality

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even on afternoons where her song is a banshee's wail

and the windows shatter from missiles shaped as coffee cups,

I understand that whole villages would drink the dregs of death

if they could but share a minute's time with the divine

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after three weeks of finding himself buried alive,

he began to play himself in games of chess,

and even though he was held entirely captive from light

the pieces that he moved around no board were white and black

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unravel (as a wave gasping at the release of the shore)

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What characteristic of trees first made men fell

such towering giants to the earth?

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Goddess, tell me of chained misery,

for I know why you came from the sea

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for an age, men knew not that oceans possessed ends

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the sweat on her shoulders scattering

like marbles on a hardwood floor

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a poem about a painting is not very different

than a painting about a person

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Collapse, my love, as the grandest cliffs of granite

change to sand with the lapping of the tide,

for I have licked my fingers and rubbed the mortal source of light

into nothing. There will be no knocks against the door,

nor invaders peering into our haven. Sleep and be mine,

and when we wake the pyramids will be palm trees.