If terror is a kind of understanding,

so is awe.

 

Today I walked through some familiar woods,

something which would have nothing to do

with awe or terror, save the weight

of a sky soon to storm,

the thunder of late afternoon.

All day the heat climbed, the air

trembled under the tension of itself,

building down, so thick you could taste it,

the wind so slight

dust settled in its tracks.

My own tracks

are as permanent now

as anything in the past,

and will soon be gone, which is

another permanence,

with its own kind of terror.

 

In the same woods a woman and I

once escaped a similar heat

and found, in a clearing, some moss.

We lay down, as lovers do,

into and away from ourselves.

High overhead the cedars

were like the rafters I remembered

in a cathedral we saw

together in southern Mexico—

so strong and dark above

they seemed to hold the world.

 

After, as we lay back

not yet completely ourselves, we felt

the release of wind,

the rumble of close thunder. We dressed,

and, taking cover under branches, saw

the yellow blaze of lightning

criss-cross a nearby tree,

the bits of bark blown off, the sound

knocking us backward, into

the ozone stench and smell of crackled sap.

 

Having survived everything that afternoon,

we said little.

 

Maybe that is the most surprising thing—

not what we say, or don’t,

which is its own source of wonder,

but what we are able to survive:

 

lovemaking, lightning,

the cathedral of cedar trees,

or even the one in southern Mexico—

the beaten gold leaf of the walls

brilliant as any sun,

the terrifying icons of saints nailed to them,

and the novena candles, scores of them

in every corner,

small, darkly burning,

their tiny flames hard as lightning,

sustained by simple prayers and a faith

deep-rooted, we say,

barely thinking of trees.

 

I came to the clearing, to the tree,

and traced the scars of lightning

wrapped around it,

tight as any lover;

the tree that didn’t break into flame,

but remained

standing,

scarred and alive.

 

 

 

 

 

First the little girls of the town

come with flowers and candles.

They sing the verses of a funeral song.

Their voices quaver, their five-year old mouths

have not fully learned

the shapes and sounds of these death songs,

so impossibly easy to sing.

After them the smaller boys, voiceless,

fidget in rows, in shoes, unused

to the stares of shopkeepers

leaning from quiet doorways.

Next the older ones, those

with the body’s first knowledge

of death, sing the whole song,

chorus and verse. Then the adults

sing only the chorus,

answering in a cadenced bass

the verses of the children.

The widow walks behind the casket,

her face veiled, her voice

small as her steps,

as if her grief has eaten her

so completely all that remains

is an outline, a querulous prayer.

After her a few friends

mumble into their work clothes,

struggle to contain their children

kicking rocks at stray dogs.

 

 

 

 

 

We slipped in, with ladder and flashlight,

to pick the roosters to slaughter,

slicing the beam through the rafters

and playing it over the flock,

humming a high, thin song to ease them,

to calm the goats shuffling in straw.

Moving up the ladder, rungs

ticking like knifeblades

locking into place,

I grabbed their legs from behind,

swinging them down, into their cages,

the squawking over in seconds.

 

Sunday morning, when the water boiled,

we carried them to the yard.

While one held the wings

we threaded each head

between nails on a stump,

stretching the neck out full.

Taking aim, I raised the axe,

its glint a flash in each one-eyed stare

where squinting, I could discern

the dulled dot of light that was me,

and exhaled the length of the swing,

their own lungs collapsing,

as I scooped up the heads—

eyes blinking at nothing, beaks gaping—

and shook with the dark joy of being,

shook hard as their beating wings.

 

 

 

 

 

Dawn. The damp heat hovers,

soaks into the skin.

A day already old

as the hands who work its length

diving for oysters, day in and out,

who measure the days by the tides,

who pray each night for whatever

small salvation they can find—

bad weather, a pearl,

the open arms of their wives.

If I look

into this hot blue sky

and say it will bring rain,

I believe it

because I want to,

and because it’s true.

If I say to them

in the breathing space between descents

they have grazed on salt grass

for the seven lean years of their lives,

they will laugh

because they know it’s true,

because they are already

salt grass and seaweed,

their swollen hands streaming.

They will take their thick fingers

and point to the sky to say

today could be any day,

today is, was, and will be

when there is nothing left

for the sky but storm,

the clouds grazing the water,

finding us at last.

 

 

 

 

 

Come dusk when the blue heat fades,

and water is the same

washed-out grey as the sky,

the boats come in, the children

gather at the dock to help,

the youngest no bigger

than the fish he unloads,

his eyes bright as scales.

Soon the boats, inches lighter

and moored for the night

disappear into their sounds,

the intimate rub and groan

of wood on sea-worn wood.

 

Before he is old he will grow

into his name and face,

his hands and eyes creased

as the sails of the family boat.

Each day he returns

to currents, tides,

the sunken fear of reefs,

the shudder and gust of waves

breaking on the hull.

He will learn the trust in ropes

hand-spliced by fathers,

the pain of fingers

scored clean by quick fish.

He will come to love

evenings, the boats in harbor,

their spread nets drying,

framing the stars.