when the chinese toast,
they drink to the bottom
before setting their glasses down.
greedy for life,
that holy avarice
stored up behind clenched teeth.
confiding- these walls
are so thick, this cloud
so dense.
coffee and the heat it confers,
seeing the cardinals in the fog,
like poe before the heartbeats,
when everything is sharper,
yet soft.
in this crystal white stillness
i reread that story, so beautiful
and yet true, split open by
a herald
eating locusts
and honey in the desert.
communing with the invisible,
we speak of meeting the same christ.
i'm always caught
in that same eddy, turning round
and round, hoping to sight a face,
a shape shifter-
are you in the trees? the children?
the thunder? the breeze?
every earthly thing, seeing what is above
by the shadows it makes on the earth,
like the dark herds of clouds
their shade on the ground.
i would sit at your feet.
this earth is the foot of your throne.
