by Diane Wakoski 

The stones, not Olmec.

     Break your ankle
     against saw palmetto
     a slash of brawling
     foliage, unregulated

And no one navigates this without
Spanish little feet,
without
a rubber eraser and piece of charcoal
for the sketchpad /no one
talks of the back of
legs that will no longer
portage an old body

Someone tells a story
and someone gossips,
and someone tries to lecture and guide
but like lizards, we turn our backs to this sunny
ignorance.

The Rain God,
     I prefer to think of Her as a Goddess,
calls
for silence, and She washes words
out of each tongue She touches. This
is a time when we re – consider what She wants
for an offering.

I’ll tell you: It is your empty vessel self;
it is you, emptying all containers while awaiting
Her downpour. Water

is Her language, and She doesn’t need prayers
or words, incantations, or supplications. She desires
the emptiness that She might fill.

I know this and I shouldn’t
have to tell myself this,

but I do because while I have lived for words,
I know that I do not revere them.
They are no more
than comestibles,
used up
as necessary,

always
needing replenishment.

To enter the temple at the top of the stone ladder
would not be allowed unless
a worshipper were an empty / EMPTY
container. Rain Goddess
loves the empty and to do the filling /drums
and chants
will not summon Her splash.

NOTHING but an empty container —
empty, empty, and
She might
     find you
          seductive.

by Diane Wakoski

     thinking of Patricia Waters
     in St. Augustine

With Minerva’s eyes of corrugated knowing
she wraps us in hand – made envelopes
of paste paper. We calligraph
our own Valencia – mouthed answers,
sip letters thru glasses of Pinot Grigio. We
idlers, we
postulants, accepting
strange epistolary wafers,
poetry melting on our tongues.

by Diane Wakoski

“Take one,” she said, opening her closet
of frankincense & myrrh.
In it hung anoraks, parkas, wool jackets, raincoats,
even a heavy loden greatcoat. All bought
in thrift stores, a wardrobe allowing her
whole family
to walk in any weather.

I selected a khaki safari jacket,
and we walked down to the marina.
What journeys we suburban women take

through costume and
accoutrement.

by Thomas Meyer

And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather
yourselves together, that I may tell you that which
shall befall you in the last days.

Cassis stained shirt. Chocolate.
Hand held out. Coin on the palm. The Tsar.
Mumbo. Jumbo. Sentences begin here.
Cache pots. Flower clocks appoint constant time.
Is there something wrong with me
who relishes all this plotlessness ?
A moon very wide awake. Behind a cloud the sun.
Perplexity all linked by depth’s hard bright angle.
Who can remember anything ?
The President and the Maiden, name them.
Slam the door on Want.
Let Have out. Don’t even think about
Hope and Innocence. It doesn’t matter what they say.
One thing, the next. Side beside side.
Never light, low ceilings. Somewhere to leave.
Is this English ?  I mean the language.
The smooth course of love is never.
A dream, the voice said: Genesis 49, the first line.

Without warning. A gust of air. A door
blown open. The world revealed.
Like the bird dashes against the light,
a dependent clause slips upon the eyes.
An alley in the dark the door
opens onto, away from the crowd.
Here there is Charity. The thick of it.

How can we deny
the stars through the trees ?

Not a house upon a hill
but lights in a night sky.