notes for reformation day

A stern schoolmaster is our God
A sour face and frowning.
He keeps us after class is done
Despite the bell that’s ringing.
And how unlike his son
Who knew how to have fun
Turned water into wine
And told jokes all the time:
Preserve O Lord our humor!

A contradiction is our God
At once divine and lowly.
He baffles philosophical thought
With one command most holy:
I tell you once for all
To love the Lord your God
Your neighbors as yourselves
And fear not death nor hell
And you will live forever!

the devil

If NPR’s
to be believed
the devil may
be in the de–
tails: but thanks to
contributions
from your local
station you can
hear it direct
from the horse’s
(sorry) from the
philosopher’s
mouth, expected
to announce this
evening that a
ceasefire has been
brokered between
forces hostile
to the very
meaning of the
word unique and
those who believe
that history is
just more of the
same. Agreed to
by the parties
are the following
articles in
outline to be
fleshed out at a
later date: that
the devil is
uncertainty,
our confidence
his enemy,
and a single–
minded purpose
is our greatest
strength. No flinching,
no concession
of lesser points
will be condoned
by leadership,
and no resort
will be made to
diplomatic
inquiry. But
holding fast to
the tenets of
the one true faith
we make our way:
Unity through
conversion is
to be preferred.
Despise the past,
doubt the future.
And keep in mind
at all times that
division is
of Man not God.

polaris

Single star of single stars
Ever turning in the dark
If it seems so hard tonight
Finding comfort in your light
After all we are as far
As four hundred lightyears apart

retriever

Going about your work
in the clothes God gave you,
stepping gingerly from
paw to paw, nose to the
air, you’re surprised only
by the size of it all.

A pheasant starts. Grass parts
where deer lay curled in the
lap of the world last night,
and here’s their trail still fresh
to the waterside where
you pause — you’ve trained for this
— wade foot–deep, take a drink,
leap out again. But what
to bring back from this day?

Decision made, you lead
your heart along with you
and leave it at our feet.

the past

at the Acropolis Museum

As the tip of Neptune’s fishing fork
or sparks off Zeus’s lightning sent,
we surge toward the only marbles that
we know or care enough to battle for:

past reclining blue–beards, past the wide–
lipped smiles of kouroi shrugging off the dust
of years spent standing still beside a bust
of — Aphrodite, probably, they’ve tried

on every head to hand and yet to find
a match — and on up to the main event:
past Centaurs, Giants, Amazons all bent
to Athens’ feared civility, behind

the low plinth bearing plaster casts of what
with classic Attic dignity the sign
insists will rightfully return in time,
Athena sprung from Zeus full–formed, the cuts

of Phidias’s chisel close enough
to touch: and to the balcony, the wind,
the night as warm as the nearby sea, and lit
from everywhere, the Parthenon above.

hercules

I.
How a wondrous foot
arches as he reaches
to catch a frisbee
glancing off streetlight

and bare settles back
into the grass how
his friend arches and

catches the sun in
their game of rain
and chance how he
steps into my path

and catches my glance

II.
We couldn’t imagine
where you found the time to
work out but there you were
doing all the heavy
lifting caring about
everything O so much

III.
Your tank top folds between your shoulders as
you lift my eyes again, again, again

As red as concentration, thin enough
to part from skin with one imagined touch