Which is my church with its green leaves, brown grass
and pine’s bark, all foresting in one motion.
I shall forest rituals of sacrifice,
but without Catholicizing faces drawn
from dark Crusading and my exiling.
Annaling to mark the sun’s solstice for Eastering
and holying days, the dew
coalescing upon the darkening and browning grass
at midnight and cooling air
arching constellations
and the mooning of the night: the cue
to lying for rest
by the small pool in this placing or
to strike, savaging at prey.
Owling as it does, darting as it does,
from a bed of branches, crying,
soundlessly shooting at a forest mouse, leaves
rustling for this night’s Nativity,
this one lifts its butterflying wings
like the soul’s silhouette
taken by an angeling force to heaven.
After owling, angeling, butterflying,
one must create Jesus as a verb.
Having witnessing these things,
limits are paining, as are knowings and doings.
The mouse must have been distracting
this owl from its offspring, thus it was Christing:
sacrificing itself for its children, thus fathering.
Seeing angels fluttering under the moonlight,
Hairshirting is my Church after living here,
after travelling through East of Eden in daylight.
Simplifying the Word---so heartwrenching---near
dawn or dusk, being as a penumbra’s cusp
I am Giotto’s halo in human form, keeper
of the haze, smoke, storm, and most of all, cup
from my own despairing.
Always there more to God than pain.
Churching myself is my work, thus by expressing
this foresting, owling, angeling, butterflying,
I narrate my life’s kingdom.
Only beautiful words for my Beatrice, Florence,
and re-Edening.