If It’s
Possible
For One Stem to
Kneel
The rain has made
the Queen
Anne’s lace to
brace to her
one knee. Her ruff is
suffered to the riverbanks
& to
the
pavement. In the night
I heard buckets
of rain & I
imagined a life-
boat taking on water
& the clogged
bilge & the
boys sluicing it all over
the
gunwales. Probably this
water & all
her attending
molecules have
shoulder-rubbed
the pomp of the
near drowned, down
the inner hulls,
into the buckets,
charged with the
rescued breath
spit into the
wind. Won't it go
back up int the
sky & be lugged
over the small
mountains or on the backs?
of goats? Won’t it have
changed some, given
their rough
revivals? Imagine
ministering to them,
imagine
the slim distance
between God’s
baptizer’s hand
on the back
of the penitent head and the
clasped grip
of that penitent, pastor plunging them
under to the
count no one has ever
agreed on but for
the waiting
of some sign of forgiveness in
the raining
sky, in the crowd
of flowers ecstatic
on the bank,
their grip of ligaments
closing over the sopped
wing
of the bee giving
up, giving into
the struggle.
