Eight Movements on Sunday Morning

1
April daffodils and a solitary blade of grass.
Eddies of breeze carry cheeps and twirps
Of cardinals and robins
As two houses away the grass is cut.
The dull roar of Briggs and Stratton
Fights against the barking of squirrels,
Blue violets and mustard weed.
Can the world awaken before it is trod down?
Winter's yellow grass is still not overtaken
Before this blade of grass is cut down to size,
Nor the last of the brown oak leaves raked and burnt:
Cain's sacrifice, less satisfying than the steaks
Put on the grill at noon.
A tall glass of iced tea.
St. Louis versus Milwaukee.

2
Twelve years old I begin.
At thirty-three no difference.
Nor should there be, nor can there be.
In the eyes there is no change,
Nor in the heart.
What enters the soul through the eyes, ears, lungs
Remains for an eternity of a single life.
Bluebirds, Red-winged Blackbirds, dusty cornfields
Mown down since October,
Leaving stock and stibble to scratch my shins against
As I walk into a patch of trees, where mushrooms grow.
Tiny morels, awakening from beneath the detritus,
They appear:
One and one and two and three.
Enough to fill a plastic sack I pull from my hip pocket.

3
Where are you now, Voice of Winter?
Where are you now, Dead Man?
Where is Golgotha and Sunday School?
It is there in the heart,
With mushrooms, and blackbirds, and daffodils,
Speaking audibly:
There are other words than these.
There are other ears.
It makes no difference.
I die, too, and lie down to detritus,
Feeding mushrooms,
Waiting to be picked by scamperers,
Feeding daffodils,
Waiting to be picked by girls in summer dresses
Where are you, Man of Silence?

4
The sparrow has taken note of me,
And she calls the alert to her partner
To protect their nest of three speckled eggs.
I would climb into the bushes to take down the nest
Of dead grasses woven together,
A fitting bed for new birth.
I would take the eggs into my hands and admire them
Despite their rancourousness.
When the shell is cracked, and the viscous ooze
Of protein and yolk
Stickies my fingers,
It will be another beginning and end of beginnings,
As it always has been
And never will be.
The wood bees are not pleased. The dog will destroy them.

5
But still there are things that must be done.
The toilet must be flushed. The dinnerware put away.
There is an order that can not be overturned.
And businessmen and businesswomen will seek advanced degrees
To enjoy steak on Sunday afternoon,
And the blade of grass will be cut by ZTR yard machines.
There is no difference.
The wildebeest is slain by the cheetah,
And the magpie by the fox,
Leaving a mess of feathers behind.
Poor birds. Poor cattle. Poor blade of grass.
Poor unhatched egg that lies crushed on the playground
As children, smiling, swing higher and higher,
Giggling,
In ecstasy of sun and breeze and songbirds.

6
In the beginning was the Word.
The Word was God.
It was with God.
The Word was God.
It was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by Him.
Nothing was made without Him.
In Him was Life,
And that Life was the Light of Man.
The Light shines in Darkness,
But the Darkness has not overcome It,
Nor has the It comprehended It.
Oh, indefatigable Word!
Oh, inexcusable Darkness!
Oh, irreconcilable Knowing!

7
Twelve planets aligned in a far away solar system,
On which there may or may not have been single-cellular organisms.
But the alignment meant very much to those of us who gaze upon the Heavens
Through telescopes and horoscopes,
Searching for the Word
In bricks and mortar and Pyramids of Giza.
I saw one one, once: a spaceship.
It fell down silently, but the songbirds took no note of it.
Still, there was Golgotha,
But the blade of grass took no notice either.
Nor should it, being itself of the Plant Kingdom,
And without Soul,
Without the Blood of the Testimony,
And with no need of reconciliation
To the Word.

8
All you laborers and lovers, hear me!
All you who dance and sing, hear me!
All you who cut grass and flush toilets, hear me!
All you who sing hymns and spirituals, hear me!
All you who rob nests, hear me!
All you who look skyward, hear me!
I do not not cease!
I do not begin!
Nor do I cease to begin!
A blade of grass.
A sparrow's egg.
My hands, my feet, my side.
Let us take communion with each other,
Glutting ourselves with bread and blood.
There is hope yet for us.