A blessing on the day

Dave Margoshes
From:   Dimensions of an Orchard. Windsor, ON: Black Moss Press, 2010.

                                    (for the September dead)


The dawn prays itself out of holy night, wills
itself into holy day, clouds bowing their
to the holy presence of light. All light
is holy, all darkness, the full and the empty
of horizons. The land is holy, the sea, air
is holy, the humours of the body, blood
and phlegm, bile and black bile, the purity
of the spirit, the echo of a lie. The paradox
of life which ends with death is holy, the comfort
of death which crowns life is holy, the irony
of laughter, the cruelty of a smile, the glistening
of teeth beneath the innocent lip, all these are holy,
the orchestration of songbirds, the black dirge
of crows, all holy, the worm in the beak
of the bird in the nest of the flowering tree,
its scent rising all the way to heaven, holy heaven.
All certainties are holy, all promises, all doubts.
A traffic light is holy, the green, the yellow,
the red, the hum and rattle of traffic, the dust
it raises, the receding red light of the taillamp
in the falling dusk. And night, holy night, praying
its way out of the ashes of holy day.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6

Dave Margoshes's works copyright © to the author.