EIGHT HERMIT THRUSHES

for Daniel Goode & Mary Jane Leach
May 20, 2007

When the windows & doors
of the old brick church
are left open the de-sanctified
space is made Holy again
by the sighs of gods’ creatures
rising to some heaven
man-made tremblings
of metal & wood & strings
the beep of cameras
the click of my pen.

Lost whispers in the confessional
give voice to hollowed sticks
the organ’s lungs make low wind
breath squeezed through reeds.

Here the color of light through
red & yellow & blue glass
scatters across black on lined pages
across a shadow nun with a pony-tail
plinking rain drops on the forest piano.

In an hour we are like eternity
the birdsong moment neither
before or after.