JOHN'S TALK

JOHN’S TALK


Bogged down now,
I am unable to picture the heavens as anything more
Than some old textbook,
Flat-line drawing of a sun-centred universe.

My hands are dirty; I have been on the floor.
The hurt which had exploded upon my shoulders and head was
A whole lot greater than I had been led to expect.

I refused to step forward and cross their glossy white line.
I would not declare Caesar is Lord,
No pinch of incense from me.

Later I discovered that I had spent a month in the prison-hospital.

OK I survived the physical assault,
Plus then the five years I spent in jail.
I have learned to pray and give thanks.
But across my heart there is a very bad scar.

Darling, things for us will never be same.
Were Mar’s worship not so fiercely organized,
How far we might have traveled in each other’s company.

A distant childhood memory persists.
Now whenever I shut my eyes
I see the bodies of robins brought down flat upon their backs,
Done in by a thin, white layer of a late-April snow.
Out from icey orange/red breasts their feet stick straight up.

What silence envelopes me, not a whisper of wind;
How might my heart stir, 
when not one other thing before me moves?