Religion

The Israeli Navy,
sailing to the end of the world,
stocked with grain
and books black with God’ s verse,
turned back,
rather than sail on the Sabbath.
Six days, was the consensus,
was enough for anyone.

1.

The dark socket of the year
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down
and threatens never to rise,
when despair descends softly as the snow
covering all paths and choking roads:

then hawkfaced pain seized you
threw you so you fell with a sharp
cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk.
My father heard the crash but paid
no mind, napping after lunch

The hinge of the year
the great gates opening
and then slowly slowly
closing on us.
I always imagine those gates
hanging over the ocean
fiery over the stone grey
waters of evening.
We cast what we must
change about ourselves
onto the waters flowing
to the sea. The sins,
errors, bad habits, whatever
you call them, dissolve.
When I was little I cried
out I! I! I! I want, I want.
Older, I feel less important,
a worker bee in the hive
of history, miles of hard

In life you had a temper.
Your sarcasm was a whetted knife.
Sometimes you shuddered with fear
but you made yourself act no matter
how few stood with you.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
Now you return to us
in rough times, out of smoke
and dust that swirls blinding us.
You come in vision, you come
in lightning on blackness.
Open the door for Eliyahu
that he may come in.
In every generation you return
speaking what few want to hear
words that burn us, that cut

O Ancient One,
your web hangs down from the pines.
I am of the Owl clan.
I have been to water,
my dress is of red clay.
He moves at the edge of you,
binds us with your threads.
The center of his soul shall be my soul’ s center.
Our paths shall be white forever.
Where we move the paths from every direction
shall recognize each other.
We are one never to be parted.

Question: Can you tell us about what he is wearing?
Well, the hooves represent the deer’ s hooves,
the red scarf represents the flowers from which he ate,
the shawl is for skin.
The cocoons make the sound of the deer walking on leaves and grass.
Listen.
Question: What is that he is beating on?
It’ s a gourd drum. The drum represents the heartbeat of the deer.
Listen.
When the drum beats, it brings the deer to life.
We believe the water the drum sits in is holy. It is life.
Go ahead, touch it.

Thunderer God of the turbulent sky may
my turbulent mind shape
for my people
rain clouds
beans
pumpkins
and yams.

East Spirit
Dawn Spirit may
birds awaken in
the forest of teeth
whose river your color must say
frozen mountains’
prayer that you
will loosen them.

Red

Mupits’ breath, in moonlight, outside a child’ s bedroom window

Hunter’ s bones scattered on the prairie

Fragrance of Comanche gangstas who entered The Zoo Club
and assassinated the bosses of Underworld Seven,
a Navajo crime syndicate

Little Stoney Burgess’ s footprints after catching ghost sickness
by running through Post Oak Cemetery chased
by snot-nosed bully, Blender Plenty Bear

Blue

I wear my heart on my sleeve,
or rather both sleeves, since
it's usually broken.

Sometimes when I join my hands
to pray, the jagged edges
briefly touch,

like a plate that fell and cracked
apart from being asked
to hold too much.

1.

Snow clouds shadow the bay, on the ice the odd fallen gull.
I try to keep my friend from dying by remembering
his childhood of praise to God, who needs us all. Würzburg:
the grownups are inside saying prayers for the dead,
the children are sent out to play — their laughter
more sacred than prayer. After dark his father
blesses and kisses him Güttenacht. He wakes
to go to school with children who stayed behind
and were murdered before promotion.