Sunday Mornings

I’ve never found another name for Heaven

except heaven-here—this walk around the block—

our meeting-place-between we live our lives,

terra infirma, the green planet, my summer morning

New Orleans awakens today, just for me.

Little gods—the sun caught on a leaf,

the iridescence shimmering its gold,

the magnolia’s fallen instant in my hand

as sun encases both of us, seconds—

all documentary of the eternal.

Citizen, I wanted you to know

theologies, but I have lost my way

in stars again, come down as fallen leaves,

two, three, the ground churning with four, five, six,

these tiniest of gods I name, re-name

by close inspection, my nose to the dirt—

aphid, dung beetle, sprung rhythm of the bees.

their countless resurrection, deaths, rebirths.

***

I Say

it’s there. I’m walking around the block now.

Gold in the upper branches of the trees,

of course, but wilder, richer inside stars

the sidewalk opens as I lift my feet,

then set them down on hues no one has seen

except the ant, the grub, the angleworm.

They have no need for mirrors in their dark—

they know themselves by fastenings they displace—

as I do, every minute I’m awake,

even in these lines, given by them to me.

They take their reassurance from the ground

I crave in others, looking in their eyes.

I see you reading this. We’re both alive.