The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom – Prov. 4:7
I write, so. The wisdom of God avails to
Those who eat its meat; those who drink its wine;
Those who break its bread; listen to its tales.
To the man with crumbs in his beard the wisdom
Of God avails.
The way of a young man with a virgin;
How the sight, the smell, the touch of a girl
Will change a boy from gym shorts to slacks, and his
Punches and high-fives become handshakes and
Pats on the back.
The way that soil beds a seed, softens the
Testa, is metabolized and changed into
Thousands of pounds of wood, grained and branching;
A living thing from the disint’rested dirt,
Weather, and element.
The way a man whose heart is dark
(Don’t be fooled: dark as the dark of darkest men’s hearts)
In one breath, will be blameless in the next;
Exhaling to death. Inhaling new air
Through new lungs,
Beating a new pulse through new veins.
There was reclamation to be done;
the path being overrun with runners
and having caught my foot in the matrix
of vines did I skin my palms in the thorns that received me.
The bedolach boughs hung lynched by their own
sinuous bark. The timber broken in winter.
Limb wounds blackening with sap
invigorated by Spring - place my wounded hands
there to regain my feet - the scent and tack
of the granular bdellium gum
flexing in my fingers,
adherent over the abrasion;
narrative in sediment.
There must be a handprint on the
frame of the door where I rested. There must
be a handprint on his robes where I clutched
at him to stay.
See, even now by the lamps of our dinner,
here in the coated creases of my hands
is the soil from which we draw this bread.
And here are the thorns and the thistles,
Red and infected are the prints that bear them.
In the sweat of my face you can see
How I hid the tears of my weeping.
On a Sunday when it is snowing
for the first time this year,
The ground is gleaming;
Forget the red leaves I didn’t rake
That rot beneath the flakes,
For the flakes that swirl, tumb-
ling off the pitch of roof.
Cup of coffee grown cold by my side
is now warming on the wood-burning stove
glowing with coals to stave off the cold
I’m watching through the glass.
I’m reading a book;
it might be a book of love songs;
it might be a book of lustful songs,
either way, my back is warm against my chair,
And I am warm within my chest,
And my lips are warm upon my jaws,
but my voice is cold from my sleep,
And my tongue sticks with
the bitter of the coffee
and decay,
So the words upon the page
stay upon the page
As I watch the world fill up with white:
Blank upon the gray
Blank upon the black
Blank upon the day
Blank upon the tracks
Blank upon the leaves
that I forgot to rake
Blank upon
The cup that shatters on the stove;
Coffee burns to residue and vapor;
The book falls to the floor
As I hobble on sleeping feet to grab a towel.
This scar on my hand is almost twenty,
and the one on my knee.
The former was a fight with my sister,
the latter a misjudged hurdle at Easter.
The one on my finger was hot wax
In art class. My buddy said it was paybacks
as he poured the spoonful of liquid,
Bubbling my skin. I don’t remember what I did.
The one in my scalp was a refrigerator
And linoleum and socked feet and a corner.
The one on my back was a plow;
Balance beam, slipped and fell. I think that’s how.
The one on my chin was a chicken
(But its scar is much deeper than mine).
The one in my spine,
Winding it tight? That is time.
The one on my lip was my knee
chasing a ground ball
Which goes to show I cause my own injury.
So you know,
dear boy,
I will cause you
Some, too.
So maybe you’ll grow up to see
That I am meant to be
A scar,
Reminding you of a Father
Who will heal every scar
I cause.
Facsimile: this moon ascending like
Soft whole notes glowing up the clef of these
Radiating electrical lines showing
Me the city skyline in melody.
Laughable: that I should notate this because
Tears aren’t streaming down my cheeks at the sight.
Do I make music, or do I just
Fake it?
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