Veils

You tore the thick and ancient veil
Even as the last pneuma
Was torn from your lungs.
You tore it top to bottom,
Reached what I couldn’t,
Rent the barrier first hung
By my damned rebellion.

You were not veiled
To the pagan executioner
When he heard you shout
At the finish,
And he confessed
The undeniable truth.

I will journey through your meat-veil,
Torn and bloody, 
To reach the holiest of holies –
Attain the unattainable –
Entering by a way unimaginably expensive,
Unimaginably ingenious.

So nail me up beside you,
Drag me deep into icy death,
That I may awaken with you
To new-returned pneuma,
Unveiled and unwrapped,
Exploding from the tomb into life.

To Vincent

I’m so sorry.
We shared much:
Love of God and man,
Wheat fields,
Crows,
Sunflowers,
Self-taught dissatisfaction.
I hope I meet you one day.
(p.s. the tree roots are beautiful
and so alive)

Springbud

Let me bud
Then burst forth
Like a pink treeblossom
In just-spring
When the sky is warming
And the days are lengthening
And the ground is thawed
And the birds eager and amorous
When the old story replays
And all creation gasps
Because it’s shocking
To see death
Spring forth
Into life