The Stations of Falling

Daylight and streetlight
do a slow crossfade
as the clock tower
counts to six.
January raindrops grow sluggish
at 33 Fahrenheit,
like eyelids thinking
of long, cold sleep.

Their frozen dreams must be like prayer,
the faith in a sunburst eternal morning
and the silvergreen ricochet
from one crystal minaret
to another,
purple, gold,
and the trumpetfall of water
on water;

or maybe,
in that last degree before dark,
they sing the litany of falling,
of rising to fall again,

the oil and water of city streets,
mosquito ponds, rot and steam,

a hymn in the throats of the celebrants,
a benediction like the sea.

_______

I have bathed in this sky before,
or one much like it —

smoke and liquid glass
dripping at the edges,
slicketing down the pines,
dipping down,
down and under
the deadfall.

I follow the float of my breath,
its liquescent
drift and linger
drawing me always
one step deeper
into the hush

and her waiting arms,
now like darkness
and its silent surrounding,
creeping from tree to tree.

At the center of the woodcut
I know
that something is warm
asleep, swaddled
beneath the frost line…
slow, even breaths,
chuckfur,
and I know
someone is ready for bed
down a somewhere country road.

The sickle moon swings
like a lantern,
its kerosene shadows
dodging my boots
in from the cold.