lost at birth sent to be
a sweetening balm, weighed
on scales leveraged in secular debt,
who would,
should listen?

what will change, the
palm print on the ledge we escaped over,
our witness to the twist in code,
rogue consecrations of law beyond touch?

would the potent display of mystery,
turbulent above us unseen
save for the vapored breath of god,
cower us and we stand in frozen love?

to where might we escape, to be
unknown, blended in to an
indistinguishable sameness.

having failed in disguise, we turn to
the promise of pitiful words
and pray;
we are small, let us move.

geese above distracting pines,
above the endless communion
of spring to brook to river.
given a holy name
brought by stern men and women
from their distant island homes.

an immigrant's wind blowing
bending the limbs low to touch grasshead,
pulling from the ****** earth
the walls among which they slept.

they built to love, shovel and pick,
brick and mortar and
they that built, named anew an old country.  
giving names to capture, change and claim,
and love in their native tongue.

new names married to old,
difficult to spell,
meanings hidden,
musical in their mystery.
baptized in war and glory
mowed low in the fields
a sacred harvest.

the blood of the named
fueling the mystery of the unnamed.
we are nourished by it.
embellishing it with our own weak deeds.

as unpronounceable as the wind,
we become simple guttural vowels
in the living name
of the distracting pines
and conjoined waters.

beyond the rooftops
and scorned trees
against a sky where little falls
without record
masha melts snow for tea.

living has become constant listening.
broke back houses and twisted trees
give small shelter.
masha lives like her cat
listening for small sounds

she waits by grey ashen mounds
of what was once her garden,
a hole in the ground
that had been her bedroom.

she drinks her thin tea and waits.
she knows the soldiers
will come soon,
they always do.
they took her husband
they'll be back for more.
soldiers always arrive without warning

peace comes in small doses.
when is does come
it comes when you're not listening.
it crawls through thick air
muddied words and broken promises.

masha drinks her tea
pets her cat
and waits.

in the homelands
there was doubt and grief.

doubt and grief are not empty things.
not hollow passing moments
carried in sacks.

in the villages there was betrayal,
a driven spectacle.
racked in the hours of hard labor, hard sweat,
the vision of blood soaking into the soil.

upon the lands
of the sweetest apples,
of gathering storm
and blood rescinded
void of worth,
they stood as distant witness
to wealth and privilege,
brothers in hunger.

as soft whole things
blood and hunger are currency
spent reviving,
making soaking ground fertile,

at its ending with hammer and lance,
all that was humanly vital,
brought perfect rains to a restored country,
showing us as passing storm,
balance restored,
our blood's rescinded relief, valued.

they bleed now our blood.

precise reflection
softly demands
it be dormant
often unspoken
unrecognized
until it shows itself
unexpected, beautiful
calming and undeserved.

as unremarkable
as an old woman
kneeling at the communion rail
in an empty church.
where she would be
in old second hand clothes
the ointment of silent praise.

faith resists that the notions
consuming her matter.
the act of prayer becomes balm.
the words beget rhythm.
the cadence spawns desire.
in precise unlistening,
silence becomes pregnant.
for in the empty church
silence has an echo.

she will pass soon
a martyr to the bloodless
painful birth of forgiveness
kneeling at a worn communion rail
requiring saints
needing stainless objects to clutch

until she gathers before her
like children to her breast  
what she must remember
and says goodbye.

in to the whiteness of day
rich with a somber breath
hushed not to awaken the past,
by a broken cistern and

christ like in resistance,
and loved for the blood that runs
through her,
that morning,
that hour, that moment, that single
beat of a heart, was a holy gift,
as she gave birth
to a child in poverty
and splendor.

fragile intentions
claiming an innocent title,
worthy of the words coming from
the pens of dead russian women.

i would have called to you in the brittle
aftermath of ancient celebrations,
through regiment of pine, across the frequent
winds cradling ****** new life
and you would have replied.

but all i know of you now is the vanished drops
of sweat fallen and dried,
the words echoed across a frozen war
and coming to rest by me each evening,
the purposeless push of our mother,
the wind and your curiosity.

we are broken engined,
and where we come to be
is beautiful in the way tradition is.
in the way the deep woods is.

it is old, quiet in layers.
a patient world, it must be.
a full country knowing life
and life within life.
great and lesser trees crowded upon each other.

as cold night begins in blue air leaking grey,
cars come by finding in their lights, us.

we watch eastward over the road
another light appears, rises,
gracious, slow, permanent.

not the sharp focus as the autos,
but glowing, spirit,
great in its distance,
though close and revealing.
it is the light we need to listen.

for in the still space between cars,
we imagine we were born
to hear the cold air,
the wet language of near by brook,

to hear the release of walnut
and leaf, their soft arrival to earth again,
the movement of small animals
seeking protection and food,

we know with more than just our ears
the sounds that live here,
have always lived here.

and we, church quiet,
know we were drawn here to listen
as each breathes in the moon's lighted air.

soon another car cuts the quiet
and the dark,
and we move again,
knowing the task ahead
begin the striking metal to metal,
with tools in our white hands

finding mechanical alien movement,
know its dark disease,
correct what we can,
and when engined again,
we leave.