angels with halos riding
rainbow horses and singing his favorite
song, dressed to the nines, with fashionable
robes and purple sashes, and best of all,
no lines for the rollercoasters. Trayvon
Martin’s parents said their slain son was
in Heaven with God, and was wearing his
hoodie. Plato’s assertions put the temporal
body in peril, but the immortal soul could
eventually have a conversation with anyone.
The pagans thought the soul just stewed,
until the Captain of the New Groove Ship
descended from Heaven and united every
saved soul, dead or alive, under one cool
banner, and cast out old Scratch, and put
out that Lake of Fire, just as soon as the
wicked were tossed in, and then it was
fireworks and roasted hot dogs for all
eternity. But what if this is it? This one
wild life, on a single blue pebble, caught
in a vast webbing of dimensions? I take
no pleasure in the capricious exclusion
of any known Heaven. I spent my child-
hood asking forgiveness of a father who
did not exist, and could not listen, a myth
in the settled universe whose conjuring
only adds to the random strangeness
of humans, now clearly standing in the
margins of their own demise, faced with
the unyielding despair and certainty that
this galaxy must end in ruin, with our
species scattered among the celestial
debris. I cannot fault any being that
seeks a balm in some perfect afterlife’s
Wonderland, though the nature of their
prosperity gospel means one man’s
salvation is achieved upon the broken
back of his neighbor. The soul’s habitation,
should it exist, leads to the imagination’s
redemptive force. We are what we make,
and the making is love, and love is the
mystery that sustains us. Any tacit
acknowledgement of religion’s cheap
tricks opens the vistas of the unknown.
The higher we climb, the world lays
wider in our scope. The more I know,
the less certain I am, and my self-
deception grows commensurate with
my ignorance. What we have is here,
where we are is now, in Time’s despicable,
multi-tentacled clutches, in the habitat
of dance and feathers, building our
headdress and staking our territory,
lending our love’s disguise to the march.
PRAYER
Red spruce trees
that yield
their wood
for the violins
made in
Cremona Italy
grow in the same
valley and have
done so since the
1500s including
the Stradivarius
tables and arms
that produce
the sweetest sounds
known to man
650 or so
instruments
worth millions
played by students
in worship of a tone
they cannot
reproduce
any other way
A single man
stands
fingering the strings
in the Dolemites
among
the reverent limbs
of the lovely spruce
making a song
that the wood
can recognize
as the new violins
are forming
in the ageless
swaying trunks
THE GLORY FAÇADE
No one gets the life they deserve.
Eternity is not the endless passage
of time, uninterrupted.
It is contained in a single moment,
where time has stopped,
a
