7.Feasts of November by Duncan McGibbon (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📖

the unmoving,

4. To the Living
Frightened into the sky
into the blue break
In the bed
you had made in the skies,
you explained how much
On the bed of stone he lay
his blood bespread.
You made our clay,
where death dealt lovers
mortal hurt.
Look for him in the hallways
that have only shadows now.
He came to find a share,
where his quick words held us.
I came too late to help
him where he fell into
a sleep he could
not come back from.
Pray for him, the desiring
to the Sire, the desired,
the undesiring.

5.What shape of bird,
what species
flew from the thorn
that grew in his flesh?
Yes, we will follow it ,
one that broke from the others,
wheeling and crying
to vanish into
dumbfounded clouds.
Comb the skies then,
comb the hollows
where the Lord has
sundered a tomb from himself.
We honour the feat
for the fear
of his distance.
and you
whom I have seen amused
by the smallest detail
in a clumsy narrative
and you whose
kindness was as sure as
your quick protest,
whose words would soften
at the first breath
of a chance personal wound.
He would tap the plastic case
that held morphine,
to tell us he could hear
but would no longer speak.
You led us in your
monologue of pain,
like a thorn branch
shivering in a copse.

Who came when he
he whispered his fear to the walls?
When he raised his hands
to rummage our distracted offerings?
His eyes were already too weak
to see the flight outside his window.
Quickly find him now
in the due of our dew,
in the dew of our goodness,
urgent one,
His tears are dried to dust,
the salted wastes, blown over.
We are strong enough to find him, Lord.
It was the thorn that turned to stone.
panicked by the cloud.
All be-shèd, all be-shèd,
his blood on the spine
of the hypodermic barb,
the swings still in the park.
For the one that broke free
who has seen him since?
since the weight of his absence
loaded us?
Where the thorn could not be found in stone.

We wait where the crows wait.
Lord give us breath enough
to time our timing.
Take away our natures,
lest your path wear out our feet.
You too sleep in our created night.
While we sift the air
for warmth, for the flailing
air of wings.

You will search for one we lost,
while we sleep
and the crows still perch,
you, the hole,
the whole,
the holy.
6. Spirit Prayer
Our tongues dried, sheeted in our throats,
wadded with grief.
the place hung with purple
sugar paper, peeled over windows,
paled by daylight,
too practised on the voices of lovelessness.
Was it the bird took off?
You called to the wind
to stay its course.
as we lay asleep.
I held him in my arms Lord,
as my peaceful friends
read him Blake.
I pulled the sheets up
to keep him warm.
He was ours Lord.
You gave us your peace lord,
the gifts we cannot keep
bound in a bundle,
of clay.
I remembered his long, slow walk
and clownish grin.
While the crows slack their wings,
Only the silent one, the seeing one,
the unseen, unsigned, un-scene.


7.Memorial
He comes as a fighter to take on the crows.
and saw the world of him knew naught,
bearing a tube with blood be spread
never so white since the first dawn’s said.
He saw the thorn had blossomed
in the house of a saddened heart.
a caring, nonchalant companion.
He comes as a sweet solitary
who has no wife in the world
and cannot tell us who took him away
and lies under his shield.
Look for him, Lord,
the placeless,
the
face-less,
the
faithless.

At Collioure,
Cantus Firmus for David
The tern alighting on the mast
will stir, estimate its distance
and falling, rant of its forced fast.
The sun too shimmers in Overlord France
and let ’s taste juniper pet als, « Tu al lasses? »
sings the café chanteuse, in the failing light.
Shine out upon the blackened was h, impasse
of sight. Maybe the headland might
resist our deletion in peaceful flight.
Imprint

Publication Date: 06-25-2010

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