oh my love
and oh my deep and sweet eternal fortune
teach me to lust
teach me to be desperate
teach me to desire that which i cannot have
i want to be set on fire
i tire of this fear of burning
that cools all the hot blood
and jades all the yearning
and calls itself wisdom

now i know you love me
and now its time to love you
we both know how i doubted
and on this long journey i was hard
hearted, the dust made me so
and slow to trust
and even though you said wait
even though the rose on the thorn
peeled away bore the fruit of your grace
i was to old and bitter to feel it
to worn out to be new
but you have brought me to this life
and all you loving
and so i come to you
and so i walk with you
and so i live in you

some mornings
like this
it is hard and the only worthwhile enterprise is
to go to bed
so, what is all of this?
why do you get up at five am
the reason is him
and as if He isnt reason enough
the reason is me
we who live alone find the
reasons to live sleeping in
our beds
and in our bibles

i love you
you understand so much when
so often i have been failed
and i love how you gave up asking
stupid questions long ago
i love how you actually pay
attention and i put aside this weariness
that they've been wearing me down with and
i believe,
deep inside that one day
the two of us
will finally meet

and if i show up to the mountain will you be there?
or will i be there
wiil i spend whole days
catching up to myself
face greasy
i go to the icemelt
from the snow tip
i take a sip of your freezing life
go to the pool for baptism
and more than that the
revision that forgives you'
and that will save me

now

and what do you say?
what do you say this morning?
you say nothing
i get up to come to you
but what you have for me is silence
you are asking of me a word
or two words
a word that will create the light
and i say
i believe in you
and i say
i will trust in you
and i say, i will sink into
the six a m dark from where i came
and i will love you

the next time you blow you don't tell me a thing
you just blow the crap out of my head and i say
i have to stop lying
i have to stop crying about the earth as it is
and my lot on it and, to make it far less poetic,
why i can't find a man
and to make it far more honest why all the men
i find are like they are
and why this town is like i is
and why she stands there looking half crazy
and she thinks she'll get disability
and you know she won't
she's just the craziness of the day
and you smile, you say
sure you will
i was so sick of this town i rode three bus routes looking
for the place where it got pretty and then at the edge
of the city i got off and sat at the top of a hill
cut like a grag, like a canyon
and river ran there and blue and silver it said
silence

and on this day, when prayers end
and trumpets blow
i am commanded by the ram's horn to pay
attention to the noiselessness of things
even the gentle thoughtful noise is too much
even the beautiful beauty has too much
glinting
hinting that i should do more than just sit
i should listen to it
but no, listen to this
i can't keep eating yogurt and making
list and i can't get enough done
and the problem with you and your
marriage is though you stare at him
the trade off you made for him
is passing a buck
and wedding rings mean never having to say
you're you
and that's the luck
that's the luck

i don't want to be like this anymore
which is to say
i don't want to be in the place where i can't see you
i don't want to be in the place of anger anymore
he said,
a wise man told me
well he told his congregation
we need to be restless, we need a constant awareness
of the monstrosity of injustice
and so we feel its nailprints now and again
and then
again and again
and what i want is to feel them with joy
and what i want is to never despair
and what i need is to listen

listen
to the ancient story i don't like
sit still and instead of hearing about saints
hear about your ancestors
saints
made proclamations and
prophecies and they roused nations
these folks were busy making you
in their lying and their dying and
their tying boys to altars and
sending them into the desert
ah, put your head upon a stone
a stone used for a pillow and pray
you will begin to see
salvation

it seems above all things unlikely that i would
hear something true
from this thing, ear shaped
ram horned
thirty days to listen to it pierce
the silence with a new old ancient noise
thirty days of the voice of the dead ram
and then
to say
what are you saying?
and what are you saying?
sometimes what you are saying is simply:
silence