i
The near-world of humans sleeps in,
no engines moan up the road early
on a summer Sabbath dawn, long
in the half-light pausing between
day heat and darkness, sky white
with the coming of the sun like
headlights over the rise of the Sierras,
buying time to inhale the morning
with their shadow, all that remains
to shield me now, parents gone.
ii
These modern times of ease
and magic, of speed and gain—
prolonged instants complicated
with deceit and the juvenile in men
fall away, exfoliate like granite domes
a little everyday, as souls exposed,
storied landmarks from another time
that wait their turn to speak,
to whisper ways to shed it all
and breathe-in this hour’s peace.
iii
God has abandoned this canyon,
left it on its own for early emergencies,
spread thin and stretched from steeple
to spire for quick apparitions
high in the shadows and stained
glass, glimpses of the light distorted
for the sure and self-righteous
in regimented towns. It is His cross
to bear, busy on the Sabbath
with the most basic flaw of all.
drycrikjournal 