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.