Chaplet

This entry is part 87 of 92 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2011

 

Garland of flowers and beads, of prayers
and breaths, rosary of alleviation—

even the gnats dancing in deep shade
figure somehow into this calculus.

But today I am past counting.
Today I want only to inhale

what comes to musk, especially
at evening. Even the crow flicks open

its dark parasol and wings away.
The river stones lie quietly under water:

not quite weightless but small
enough to turn and bevel at the edges.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

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2 Replies to “Chaplet”

  1. The river stones lie quietly under water:/not quite weightless but small/ enough to turn and bevel at the edges.

    SURFACING
    (An Ars Poetica)

    Surfacing. We allow ourselves this one
    salving act when every balm fails.

    Bobbing up for air where it is rare,
    we pray that this will hold long enough.

    Enough for the moments at dusk when
    we must dive again, submerge again,

    into depths we know will one day hold us
    down, and remain there to mend hurts

    that in those magical spaces become
    like pearls: prickly cutting dirt engulfed

    into bivalved flesh that may in turn
    become a magical gem from the agony.

    Surfacing, we find ourselves some river
    stream to rest with the rolling river stones.

    Surfacing, we know we must go back
    to the darkened depths, and like oysters

    bear the pain cutting through our flesh
    that we may surface soon with a new pearl.

    —Albert B. Casuga
    06-16-11

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