Joseph Lisowski writes

FROM DEATH’S SILENCE [part VI]

WEATHER REPORT

Rain spits on the cracked land,

enough to tease shallow roots.

It encourages manic thrust.

An hour later, the sun returns

to punish impetuous growth.

Its rays stir ashes,

mixing grass with sooty earth.

The rest of the day is lost to desert,

those winds that the Sahara sends.

FIGHTING THE PRESCRIPTION

Words slam against the roof of my mouth

before my tongue can move.

I try harder but feel nothing

except a steel lid no words can lift.

A desperate moaning below.

I exhaust all my power

by raising the lid a sliver.

Then slide down a ravenous cliff

where there is keening.

I fall in darkness

thick as sludge.

I strain every muscle

to reach the lead seal

that caps my heart.

I put my palm on it

and feel a faint beat

which I now record.

KEEPING TIME

Calendars are slow reminders

of love missed.

Sorrow is a day

that never ends.

EPISTEMOLOGY

Communication always goes beyond words.

Language assumes structure, a temptation

to falsify by a decorum of sense.

Thinking is merely a grasping for patterns.

How can I say the truth,

knowing that language

cannot contain it. Syntax

is always referential.

Semantics a matter of preference.

Or habit.  Or exasperation.

I know imperfectly.  And

am known, not known.

COUNTERPOINT

My wife keens again

now in the bedroom as she prays.

I woke this morning at 4:30

and stared into suffocating heat.

Later, I turned on a light

to read Thomas à Kempis,

his Imitation of Christ:

"Words do not feed the soul . . . ."

I thought of what I am called to do.

My wife keens again

now in the early night.

I am in another room.

My words fall on the page

like sweat staining sheets.

WHAT WE CHOOSE IS WHAT WE GET

Preference matters little.

Service is what counts.

We're given a gold ring

before birth and quickly lose it.

This marriage is broken

before we know the pain.

It's divorce, not annulment.

Our weakness laments the cure.

Even so, the world shines,

leaves twinkle in rain.

Exuberant flowers and

rotting bark alike

proclaim rapture:

life, death, life--

deeply inhaled, exhaled.

I live within the ring,

knowing what I lost.

But sensing only now

it is within my touch.