St. Teresa Puts in a Skylight
Poetry
Poetry is like prayer in that it is most effective in
solitude and in the times of
solitude as, for
example, in the earliest morning. Wallace Stevens
Very soon now the light shall die.
The Great World will be rent—
ashes, sobbing seraphim, calves
born with crabbed feet. Rain
then the absence of rain.
Wild thunder pounds in my head.
I didn’t follow the holy man around
I never sat down to a meal with him
Loving him began this way: water
poured into emptiness
the bowl filling
I have come forth
to set my heart
on the ground
and to make a small
signal fire,
mixing smoke
with dust and clouds.
The blue-white
flame, with the orange
aura, bright
as the blood oranges
of the south,
this
will be the burning
of my soul.
How long
does a soul endure
in a changing place?