January, the silver vigil

"Dirige, Domine, Deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam"

Direct my way in your sight, O Lord my God

"Av harachamim shochen ba'meromim

Be'rachamav ha'atzumim hu yifkod be'rachamim"

The Father of mercy who dwells on high in His great mercy will remember with compassion...

January-

Memory itself contains great irony.

The same moment can seem an eternity ago

and just yesterday

and the word for loss is choke

when I can hardly breathe for it

stuck in my throat

all of those stray lamentations

for the souls I am bound to

but have somehow yielded in the annals

and in the hallways

and there is only infinite universe

where you, my history, my legend

were once my flesh and blood

and I choke

I ducked the last hug

as we passed in the hallway

carpeted brown as it were

your eyes, dazed and full of pain

met mine

your little girl

and you opened your thin arms carefully

pale as a clenched fist

spirit gently ebbing and fading

just under your skin

pages of a beloved book

left out in the sun

full of fear, I ran

Your arms slowly lowered

and your eyes slipped off mine

and went beyond my horizon

and just like that

I lost you

My little boy

passed me in the hallway

the other day

I held out my arms to him

He grinned, ducked and ran

I closed my eyes for a moment

as my heart beat a soft shadow

drum in my chest,

then I said, 'Lets try that again'

and I hugged his bright, laughing spirit in my arms.

I look in other people's broken mirrors

discarded on the side of the road

and see angles of myself I have never seen before

Something less then solid

are we even really here?

January is the white of pink

frost bitten fingertips and

the last obstinate autumn leaves

clasping chilled branches steadfastly

against wind as cold as an almost touch.

and evergreen boughs in shadow green

are stooped with sight because they know

Back when it was always brown paper and string

I would draw with sharp stones on the etch a sketch sidewalks

always faces, with smiles and hands that held others hands

and chimneys with dancing curls of crayon smoke

January, a silver vigil of a sentinel angel

with its impending snow, a withheld cry

and a flush slow spreading across cheekbones

wing feathers reaching up and out

It is difficult not to surrender to the lofty skies

and the cloud swans with graceful throats

the wide, wise blue breath of winter

so stark and so cold as it sweeps across soaring towers

the high places where the air is thin but the heart grows large with grace

and cotton buttoned shirts billow in the wind

I exhale a cloud from lips which spread

like blood stains on linen

I must blow this all away

all this dust from the lintels of the tombs

and the lingering scent of beeswax and cassia and cedar oil

I inhale a kiss

fragrant as vanilla pods, scraped with a keen blade

I dream of rippled oceans of warm salt

and tides like scarves

spilling on the hush of sand

I shiver now

because I am too damn stubborn to button up my coat

and I cant help smiling at the sight

of twenty seven pigeons squatting shoulder to shoulder

on a rooftop

somehow so devotional

In their found space of serenity and solace