Tollite vobiscum verba, et convertimini ad Dominum

-Osee 14:3 1

Provide yourself with words, with magic words,
And like Old Väinämöinen 2 sing them
Into the air, the wild, clean air, those words
Sing all that’s Good and Beautiful and True

The Sampo 2 of your mind spins not out flour
Nor salt nor gold, but needful thoughts and songs
In words that sing and sail beyond the sun
And back into that Founding whence they came

Write, then, the Good, the Beautiful, the True
And let God write them back again to you



1 Osee / Hosea
2 The Kalevala

Syllabus for a Summer Day

Awaken with the sun, and while thin mist
Slinks eerily across the fields, step out -
Labor across the dewy grass, near ripe
For the second cutting of summer hay

The lesson for today is clearing brush
Along the fence lines of both fields and life
The attendance check is for needed tools:
Old gloves, old boots, old saw, and fresh new verse

Awaken with the sun, honor the day
With work and play to earn a grade of A

                       Alternative Syllabus for a Summer Day

Ignore the stupid sun; go back to sleep
Reject the chatter of the alarming beep
And waken at a reasonable Christian hour –
Oh, ten will do; earlier is so sour!

Then bathrobe-shuffle to the coffee ***
See what is on the news, or maybe not
And scratch and yawn and look around to see
That nothing has changed since last night at three

Ignore all work; just stick it on the shelf
And for my grade, I’ll happily take an F!

Kingsville, Texas, 1955

A loaf of bread from the Piggly Wiggly
A quart of milk because MawMaw forgot
A Coke and a Mickey Mouse funnybook
A water pistol and Eskimo Pies

A pack of PawPaw’s brand of cigarettes
So he can watch his Yankees this afternoon
On the Sylvania with the rabbit ears
In gloriously static-y black-and-white

Plays called by Dizzy Dean and PeeWee Reese
In our childhood world, forever at peace

Beyond the passion of colour
the wind is crawling over trees
clawing at loose clothing
and things
not tethered or secure.
Beyond empathic words uttered
it sings hollow
and then a full
roar
settling its breath
to a sigh as it dies
beyond the texture it brings.
With nothing to mark
its existance except thee.

My mother grew up poor and strong,
Wild and kind,
Unsteady and prime.
Black curls and brick house,
Stealing for her supper.

My mother can push and fight,
Claw and brawl,
My mother is a warrior in lamb's clothing.

She stands upon walls,
Falls,
then finds her footing.
Because my mother is a warrior in lamb's clothing.

At times she's insecure and unsure,
Unknowing that
My mother is a warrior in lamb's clothing.

She pushes, bows, cares and bares,
She can endure all things, conquer all things and renew all things,
For my mother is a warrior in lamb's clothing

A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.