When he comes
to my door, and finds
a silver knocker
with hand forged fleurs-de-lis,
ornamental rosettes
and scalloped punches,
sculpted scales and
featherwork,
depicting all decadence
that the most of these
could never know—

Will he knock?

Rifle through my pages,
find a chapter that
has nothing much that
pushes this protagonist
perfection-ward.

Read aloud a line or two
before you graft these
cherry blossoms, fleeting,
into my storied life,
pressing their oils into
each and every word.

Fold me over
flowered moments,
stack brighter tomes
upon my head to
straighten my spine,
keep time until
pink petals are preserved.

The crunch of 
snail shell underfoot
leaves me fractured,
flattened, gooey.

My shoulders sag
beneath the weight of 
death—
I cast my eyes upon the
carnage I have caused
and wallow
in my guilt.

Anima mea tranquilla est. Tu me timore libera.
Audiam, adorem te Deus. O! Conloquamur nos.

Cinge me pacecum. Dirige mente ad caeli amorem.
Ponis et finem doloris. Ego tranquilus sum.

Imprinted on the air around his head,
a holiness embossed our mortal light.
It raised the edges of terrestrial sight,
and framed our living water, daily bread.

That’s how they knew, when he said “follow me”,
that he was cutting through this mortal plane
and rippling the surface of our pain,
they looked and saw it happen visibly.

And through this shimmering bend in earthly space,
a glimpse was seen of kingdoms from above
reflecting in their hearts eternal love
and leading them to look upon his grace.

The fabric of our world for him will bend.
He is the past, the present, and the end.

Pluck a tall tale
from the branches
of your childhood.
I don’t care if it’s true

so long as it 
tastes like you and
fills my plate,
my eyes,
my belly.

Spiritus domini ardit in gloria terram procedit
Caelum et angeli veniunt. Eos suscipite!

Hosana, et gloria in excelsis Deo

Sanctos in scientia extendit, restituens judices suos
Virtus et scientia Dei per velamen erumpent

Hosana, et gloria in excelsis Deo

O, congregabimur, Regnum caelorum divulgetur nobis
Nos possidebimus cum Deo gloria visionesque

Hosana, et gloria in excelsis Deo

Agnus et leo que simul cubabunt — beata tal dies!
Iesus nunc servat amissam Ephraim, Ephraim

Hosana, et gloria in excelsis Deo

harrow clayey earth
let the breathing of light in
before the planting

Open your mind and nostrils,
breathe wide and long and deep
till you remember the warmth
of the kingdom.

Sweet, sweet heaven, waves of
warm sugar, sultry scald of cinnamon,
whirlpools pulling me into
reverie and endless home.

Fresh cut heaven and the sweat of my brow,
the work becomes its own reward,
living earth is jasmine, olive oil,
and I am now her salt.

Zest of heaven, bitter peel, puckered
stain under my nails,
crisp cut clean, refreshed,
delicious unto me.

Rain from heaven, swelling still,
horizon filled with gray,
asphalt in the air,
and I am there.

-
one
point
of light
stretches out
to infinity
makes one full turn to transcribe all.
Thus every thing is, was, will be by light created.

I step into your world,
to escape the noise of mine—
shouting, crowding, drunken
reeled, refrains, and riots—
Noise, this rumbling, endless
grunge of mechanical
sound, the ceaseless voice of
building up, breaking down
voices announcing selves,
if only to be heard—

Retreating, I close the
latticed doors behind me,
approach your quiet life
so I can tune my ears
to peace, a heavenly calm,
a place where pins don’t drop
and lights and sounds are low.

HALLELUJAH they cry
IN EXCELCIS DEO
they send all their glory—
above the muffled sheep
the brass cuts sharp and clear
through silent, stormy nights,
a blast of glorious day
waking shepherds,
waking kings,
waking priests,
waking wanderers.

Bursting at you, from you,
shouts and lays and anger
underscore your life,
yet framed in gaudy noise
you carried peace within,
enough to hold, to share,
to make in me a place
where not a wave can reach.

I’ve been reading the Book of Mormon to find words, ideas, poetic turns of phrase that sound at the same time relatable to your average Christian and uniquely part of the Restoration; uniquely  Mormon, if you will. Early authors declare that their words will not be dimmed by time, for example. They say that the mysteries of God, origami-like, remain to be unfolded, laid out flat before us, creases ironed out, wrinkles smoothed, mountains and sons laid low.

Visionary men
name each grain of sand and seed,
golden precious things.

Violence is not a foreign concept. It simply doesn’t rule their lives. A last resort, a command reluctantly obeyed by even zealots who would go and do whatever they think their Lord commands, hedged by walls of justice and the designs of a God who is mightier than all the earth, which includes one wicked, drunken man. Swords cut through bones and brothers only after their workmanship is declared to be exceedingly fine.

Homelands are destroyed,
but this tree is full of fruit
I cannot describe—

tree of life and light—
leaves so bright I cannot see
that devastation.

And it’s not like hardship and pain didn’t follow at their heels either, it’s that they took time to see, and hear, and speak with the tender feelings of a father and the curious wordmanship of a poet who has seen his filth made clean by the blood he knows his children will stumble on. Their visions were metaphors; not hiding the truth, but making it beautiful and memorable. They feasted on the words they fought to bring into the wilds. They tore their souls in two and asked their God to soothe their iron necks and give them dust to lick up, lay down in, rise up from.

And when they could not
understand every symbol,
they begged him “Teach us!”

He taught them to read—
springtime could be any day,
salvation was now.

Works of darkness, nations healed, dead laws, and grace to live. Nephi, Lehi saw these things, and they chose beauty. A father gave his sons’ names to the earth before he went its way, and a son, left to mourn and weep by night, declared that his words would be made strong in time.

The word of the Lord
was beautiful like snowfall,
needed like the rain,

firm as the mountains,
widespread as the desert sand,
as large as the sea.

And what a legacy! The prophet poet did not die with Nephi. Jacob saw his people dressed in stiffness, urged them to feast upon the love with which God fed them. He spoke at length about the olive trees they were, and the vineyard they were charged with. Hearts were pricked, stones were read, and the natural man was an enemy to God. They bowed beneath the earth and were all beggars. In bones and beasts and ruins, they sowed filth and reaped chaff, and buried their dead with their hands.

The flesh of a man
subject unto death by fire
bound in death by men
shadow of a thing to come—
not unbroken yet

The flames that consumed a prophet who was detained for comparing a king to a dead plant and killed for saying God could mean two things—this fire stirred the heart of a man who would come to wish for thunder’s voice and compare the word of God to a seed whose fruit is sweeter if you’ve tasted bitterness. 

Alma, coincidentally the Spanish word for soul—we don’t know what happened to him. He saw war on the horizon, told his son that “cursed shall be the land”, and then he just left. He probably went to the refugee camp to join the exiled believers, cast aside for being poor and refusing to kill their families.

His soul was taken
by the hand of God, they say,
away from this earth—

his soul was planted
like the word of God, I think,
among the outcasts.

My reading project, searching my faith’s canon for poetry, hits an odd snag here. Early on, one chapter of scripture could yield multiple pages of notes and ideas, unique and beautiful phrases. But here in what we call the “war chapters”, five chapters barely yield one page. A civil war has spilled into messy alliances, and the work of death is on all sides. My notes, sparse as they are, are full of bloodshed and anger.

My heroes are not immune, and their words are ugly and fierce.

In seasons of war,
men cannot see the beauty
in the blood they spill.

Point me towards heaven,
but do not take me there
just yet. I’d rather stay
on earth and learn from
death and disappointment.

Let me not climb up
Babel’s spiral star,
sequester myself in the attic
of this moldy house while
down below the rest are dining.

No, pinch and pull up
pointed spires. Inspire me
to learn a better tongue
and speak the kingdom here
for those who stay.

The fullest-bodied Saint Jerome I’ve seen,
ironically the saddest of them all,
is realizing now that Adam’s fall
is how we follow Christ where He has been.

I stood in a red brick plaza,
thronged by cries to slay
the man they never knew,
surrounded by the ruddy cheeks
of men who never learned to listen,
so sure of themselves,
they behold the man.

They step on my feet and
bicker amongst themselves
over how and why to pierce him—
For our country!
For our people!
We will kill him, look!
Behold the man!

But looking through their ghosts
and pointed spears,
as through a glass,
hands across my brow
to shield the light that blinds,
I cannot behold the man.

I see him there
in purples, grays, and glory,
drenched in good wine
saved till now—
beneath a clouded sky,
the sun is shining
from his face, and I
behold my God.

She hefted, swaddled
heaven’s holy son and
held him close—
she watched him slip into sleep,
limbs dangling limp,
precious pietà—
she heard his cry and suckled
heaven at her breast, a hungry child
with so much to know—
She laid her lips upon his head,
and savored holy words within her mouth,
honey, milk—
She breathed in deep,
inhaled eternal life and love,
forgiveness, peace

A woman who could read the signs
would feel the weight of heaven
that she bore—
would see the law and prophets
hanging from his hands
that stretch out still—
would hear the ancient oaths
undone, rewritten in the blood
of this boy, her son—
would taste the wedding wine,
a type, a shadow of the feast
that he would be—
would smell the flesh
of lamb upon the altar, offering
forgiveness, peace

Am I complicit in my Savior’s death?
The cross that I have carried for my Lord
has lifted and prepared him for the sword
of wickedness to take away his breath.

Raised and ridiculed before the world,
pierced so that his blood could spill and save
us, black and white, the king, the child, the slave,
and I, complicit, carry him forward.

Render unto God, the word he gave—
though worthy sacrifices I have none,
he gives himself—I bring you, God, your Son

Golgotha-ward upon the path he paved,
that in his death he, you, I, we, be one,
what must be done, O Jesus, must be done.

Did God wear rubber gloves
to shield his holy hands from darkness
as he separated it from light,
or would that have diluted heaven’s word to
let it be?

Did he test a trillion shades,
gradating robin’s egg or royal,
piercing bleeding, blistering crimson
on their endless march to midnight, onyx, jet—
Did he have a favorite hue?

Did one eternity give him experience enough
to turn his bright thumbs green,
or does he carry on today, kneepads on,
hands humid and buried in the earth he formed
to give his garden life?

Did God corral that mingling light
that could not leave the dark alone,
and keep her in a cup to pass across the day,
allow brief visits through the night
while other friends and sparks fill up the sky?

Did He teach them how to swim,
a dab of sunscreen on his nose,
until they filled the oceans and
the skies with hopes and dreams,
did he cheer?

Did he sculpt the hoof, the paw, the foot,
until it looked enough like his to be
sufficiently, a child—
daughter—
son?

Did God take off his hat
and wipe his brow,
a flick of holy sweat to water Eden,
then kick up his feet and sip
an icy glass of life?