I knock at the wooden gate, entrance to the stupendous chamber.
They preach in their gospel, “welcome home”
“See,” I whisper, “won’t you listen just a bit?
For the world is bountiful and I cannot help but marvel
and I ought to keep records, so much that
I’ve concocted the world itself in words.”
Blasphemous and extraneous!—said they
Not even a welcome,
No words.
Their eyes were enough to bid me go.
They locked their hearts well enough that I may not reenter.
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Good grief! you should have seen the face
Of the mother that brought forth her babe for you to baptize
Yet you closed the church before
The ceremony ought to begin
And the baby, full of life
Is mine and mine alone to keep
Yet again.
Nobody rejoices in the favor
Of the woman whose child for nine months she carried.
Carry on did the priest and his nuns with their
peace in the chapel
Well-chained.
Do you sleep soundly and dream not
without a thought of what I must have
composed?
Do you only pray in silence and not
with tune?
I shake the dust off my feet, although
Begrudgingly so,
I bless them for their charity.
No wonder I write
And this too, I write about:
For my words do not belong
In this earth, home to creation Big and small, beautiful in all kind,
There’s
No space, no space, all soil.
— May 17, 2024
