Hail to Thee,
I write, my wrist nodding
as it does when chopping leeks
and garlic with a knife, then stirring
the soup, whose project—with farro,
ceci, and nettles—is to present life
as it has been forgotten. Sit a while
and wrest the awe from these rites; an era
waits, wistful on the wire, while
the priest holds up the host
as if it were the sun
or moon, says this is
my body, then blesses
and breaks it. When the sky
is on a lark, we look before
and after, lest we be struck
by unpremeditated art: Outside,
the wet irises wait, waist-high
in Shelley’s pale purple even
while my father, in summer after
supper, lifts each burning briquette
with his tongs and holds it
deep in water until the black
stops hissing and bubbles cease
to rise. He places them on a sheet
of newsprint to dry, lined up
the way the bodies of the dead
wait for the Resurrection. Bird,
although thou never wert, arise: please
rate your purchase, just as St. Augustine
distinguished the eternal from
the human: our sentences
have a beginning
and an end—except for the one
he proposed for his own
epitaph, once used by an ancient
Roman whose tomb stood
next to the road: When you read these words,
I speak, and your voice
is mine.
