How to Become All Attention

You hold still, arms crossed,
In the simple hold
Earned by listening.

Whoever listens
Attentively earns
Nothing in the way

Of wealth or wisdom,
But there’s a pattern
Worth the attention

Of the listener
Who’s vaporizing
Into attention.

For the connoisseur,
The finest voices
Aren’t the podcasters

Or the broadcasters,
Haunting as they are
Falling from the dark

Of rural highways,
Driving, windows down
In the right weather—

A soft night, few lights,
Shadows of black cliffs
Or scents of spring blooms.

The finest voices
Are family members—
Children, spouses—

Or the murmuring
Of old, haunted friends.
Just sit in the dark

And listen, listen
As attentively
As you can to speech,

To cadences most
Of all, forever
Asking yourself, what

Am I doing here,
What is my value?
Paying attention.

Disintegrating Figure

You intend fire and ash,
But dirt’s been on your mind.
Arrangements have been made

For cremation, but dreams
Have been circling the grave.
Makes sense if you divide

Your afterlife between
What happens to the flesh
And to the words you’ve left.

Divide it as body
And soul, if you prefer,
And that also makes sense,

Up to a certain point—
Reversing the graveyard
Arrangement of bodies

As rot in soil and soul
As vapors dispersing,
Leaving body as text

And counting the soul as Earth’s
Pure disintegration.
Up to a certain point,

The analogy works,
The best you can ever
Say of figured language.

There’s no questioning—dirt,
For whatever reasons,
Keeps making itself part

Of such analogies,
Good or bad, that grab you.
Think of writing a poem,

This poem, any poem, lines
Of poetic language
You’d like to accomplish,

And you think of treasure,
Of a hoard in the soil,
Lightless below the phase

Transition to bright air.
You think of the hidden,
Sweet-smelling acreage

Under the roots, the roots
That shelter the treasure,
The poem that waits, date-stamped,

Dug to be discovered,
Passages made to be
Found as though always there

In place of passages
Always there, made to be
Seen as discovery.

Just Now As It Started Snowing

It’s not a strength you ought to have
Been given, not a strength you ought
To own—to be able to shift

The scenery, alter mundane,
Local weather, to break the rules,
To make it snow. Darling, physics

Is just to the real world what rules,
Basic instruction manuals,
Are to things like sports and courtrooms.

It’s not that they can’t be broken—
Breaking them creates different games.
Mess with physics, change your cosmos.

It’s not a strength you ought to have,
And until just now no one did.

Bad Faith

Your email asked,

Why did you choose

To walk away

From your faith in

God? And a whole

Theology

Rose in my mind—

To choose, to have

A choice to make.

There’s a kernel

In that question

As posited—

An assumption

That faith is good.

Faith is not good.

Faith is wicked,

And that is why

I walked away.