This inextricable mix

of good and evil

a filigree weave

of dragon’s teeth

and gold. The earthquake

in Kobe, 5,000 shaken

off the bough

and the others know

all is as it should be,

this pruning,

golden shears passing

in the moonlit night, a

flight of diseased birds

beautiful in their descent,

ascending like prayer past

misery, blood, loss,

to the heart of the buried seed bleeding

new tendrils, new whiskers

sewing life and all its boundaries

that make us belong.

 

It’s this suffering that

redeems us, polishes and

ripens us,

picks us clean

of meat, and bones

dance only to God

at night, painted with

ivory light and

thoughts of the

spaces between each rib,

the rushing in and out of blood

and will,

desire and light.

 

These things I know

having suffered in

small degrees and

touching a pain

greater than my own.