Para/Phrase

 

Ash Wednesday:

    a para/phrase

...did he use the same muscles

to paint as he did to pray?

                        Terry Tempest Williams

                        On El Bosco's  jardin de las delicias

it's a cashmere sort

of morning and early

enough and still

with dark and clouds

one great bank of them

melding enough

to be one mass adrift

which ever way the wind

is insisting has 

blotted out the pins

of light i've come to

depend on and so

haven't you and so

haven't we all

for the bravery

it takes to break  

down and shier and shave

the heavy wools grown

then shorn from 

the body that's worn them 

all winter long

how the lanolin can

smooth and soothe the winter 

roads of your hands 

and make them

a blessing to be touched

by.  wait for that.  wait.

for now the ewe

is still in service

to her coat and lamb 

and hasn't yet been flayed into

the cornucopia of her

labor and because 

she'll be delivering both

into the shepherd's chapped

and bleeding hands

we can wait it out

in cashmere in something

almost weightless

and soft as river bottom

rocks after snow has let

go and after ice also

and only so as trout know

to let go (remember going is going

back to the beginning)

there's still clouds that cover

there's still no seeable

light of the stars behind them

and the lambing is yet

on its edge       but listen: 

the wood's been felled 

and the fire's soon

lit and her flame

is a coal we coax

alone in our superstitious 

gloam of last year's palms

dried and burnt and rubbed

crosswise on our third

eye. and who believing wouldn't

see in the dark being lent to them

in anonymous sparks

lifted like lit

pricks of sin and snow