Crane
They call on her for one thing only;
she is built to lift the weight
they cannot. They attach safety chains
and she swings beam after beam,
rafter upon rafter,
up and over the building site,
and lays down each piece
in its place. She knows
her capacity and her reach,
the stabilizing legs
hold her firm.
Do not ask her to dig
or scoop or drag.
Do not ask her to change
what she does best,
her gentle lift, the ballet
of all she carries.
LAE2017
2017.3
She will do what she will do
no matter what words
your lips form into love knots,
no matter how long you stand
with your arms wrapping her sorrow.
There is nothing she will not do,
nothing held back. She is quicksand
seeded with landmines.
You must not walk here. Run.
Don’t look back. You could never save her.
Merciful Jesus, won’t you
gather her up like broken bread?
There is more than enough
to feed a multitude.
LAE2017
2017.4
The miracle would be…
the miracle would be going back,
to before we did what we’ve done
to each other,
back to kindness, and loving
exactly how you came to me
raw and imperfect,
magic and raucous,
before I dreamed up all the ways
I might mold you
into something less mighty.
The miracle would be
waking up and discovering
heaviness dropped in the dark
and a wheel within a wheel, turning,
like a movie’s opening
repeating, repeating, repeating
the part where she
notices him, just briefly,
then carries on. The moment where
what happens next
is anyone’s guess.
LAE2017
I’m giving them away, I know it. Instead of saving them up for some bigger purpose, I let them trickle through my fingers like sand. Time passes so quickly, and these are only words. Why not say them now.
Sub Zero
The fridge trickles and pops,
the ice maker oblivious to the deep freeze
outside, and our growing thirst
for wine, and flames.
The lake is thick skinned with ice.
Like our winterizing bodies layered in
blankets, Fazl socks, and comfort foods,
water is a memory of itself,
a dream of what comes next.
We have done this before, hunkered down
in tired horizons when darkness comes.
We will wait it out,
try not to think about
four season sleeping bags
or Fentanyl
or our saviour complex.
On a night like this
our hands are empty. We need
mercy. We all need mercy.
LAE2016
Enough
You come to conclusions
like you know
the end from the beginning
have the verdict from the judge,
are a presiding member
of an end-times jury.
You call it child abuse,
and murder – you are
a character assassin,
your slogans a series
of slicing pronouncements resulting in
curbside fatalities, pedestrian
bleed out.
He was silent
and then he said, let you
who has no sin cast the first stone,
let you who has no sin.
I try to look away but see
you are an elder, with a time worn face
and commitment to a particular flavour faith.
I see sandwich boards and signs,
team huddles on your gang turf
railing against the other side
where girls walk, drive, and ride
a gauntlet to the clinic.
I imagine they have tried
to find another way through tears
and bargained prayers, lost sleep,
arrival at a cross-road and
a choice. This.
And you choose. That.
I drive by. Each Tuesday.
I want to drive through… my over-righteous
indignation, then I am ashamed
I am not blameless, yet I blame.
I once shared your state of mind.
No longer sure, I am witness while I drive by,
every Tuesday, before 9.
He was silent, finger marking dirt
with what…a symbol of his throne?
And then he said, let you
who is without sin cast a stone,
and the righteous weaponed ones all left.
And only he and she remained.
Neither do I condemn you, proclaimed the voice
of overcoming Love.
How then does it end,
me judging you judging them?
(apart from any conversation about sin
which I am clearly choosing not to enter in
because it is bigger than I can entertain.)
My commentary though cathartic is just the same
as you. This is how we cancel love. Enough.
Enough. Enough. Enough.
Dear God forgive me I have said enough.
Forgive me for what I do not do,
and what I do, not knowing.
LAE2016
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a poem. Almost a month.
Forgive me.
I’m linking this poem to today’s Poetry Pub over at dVerse Poetry, answering host Victoria Slotto‘s request, “to post a descriptive poem in which images are used to describe a feeling, a truth you hold dear, a person, using primarily surroundings—in other words, an imagist poem that has an embedded message about whatever…”
This time
This is what it feels like –
first step, splinter of ice,
eyes fixed on the gleam of going,
no clear way out.
The walls tight
like winter,
hands bruising the throat of spring.
You blow halos on the frosted window,
birth pains to a small voice.
The air opens to your giving,
you can almost say the way.
Lesley-Anne Evans, 2013
BUDDY BREATHING 