The Moorings

(it's Sunday - time for a sermon)


I hear the sound of the canyons, undivided
The mountainside, underused
The hills with trees and eyes and rough
The seventies, the junk, the stuff

I hear the voice of the mother, motherless
The child and her daisies
The child and his grief
Heard, heeded, understood
A voice, annotated forever

I feel the moonlight lie to me
I hear the voice of someone else’s muse
I sense the water rising over there
And here it just sleeps
Then gathers and seeps
But only for seconds or minutes
Never for hours or forty days

I see the paintings of reluctant students
Creating what needs to be there
For walls are wider than windows
And the eye to the soul is closed
I see the pain in the face of the subject
There’d be tears if the paint hadn’t dried

I hear the voice of the smaller mountain
The voice of the cemetery snow
The sound of the weed-pulling waitress
It’s her nature to make it seem just so

I touch the base of the last building standing
On the street where the wild roses grew
In the cracks of the overgrown asphalt
Those were the years when we knew
That some places and all faces
Are temporary

I see the form of the mother, motherless
With her bags of blues and wires
Hanging sturdy, twined, from her shoulders
I see the outlines of two happy children
In silhouettes, there is always joy
I feel the moorings of a generation break
I make no effort to restore what has dissipated
It’s enough to love and leave
Time and place and it’s okay
They’re just moorings anyway

October 19, 1997