On cold days, the divine haunts
the exhalations of squirrels
whose breath hovers
starch-white as tiny souls.
Like the sky, heaven begins
at one's feet. Look down.
The redwinged blackbird's rasp
sounds angelic, summer croons
pontifications of light,
and, my god, life fancies trees.
Because I believe we become
a neverthriving of dreams,
all our senses leveled,
I imagine the divine
drawing on of evening,
belted at the waist,
the divine cloud-slung stars
burning black holes
into the fabric of night,
I divine the lusty sun
in each aching-green leaf,
and revere the silver
ceremonies of the moon
cradled in its own arms.
Just imagine the divine
hilltops padded with trees,
the bone-wings of a river basin
hipped in daylilies, Canada goose chicks:
fluff-budgets that waddle.
Before my one and only
three-pound universe, I stand
in judgment, alone with the world,
so long as we both shall live,
or vanish when eyelids close.
Because life will have been all
my days, I imagine the divine
face of my loving dear,
who shares the harsh and softer fate-falls
inside these garden walls
where the divine agency of love
will have mattered in the end
more than faith, call, reward,
or a vein of panting stars.
Like the planet, we seemed
to be traveling through space
but were always in a holding pattern
between the earth and sky,
waiting to unbecome, plural once more.