A God's God's God (2002)

How to be a god's god's
god? To beacon that moon
which enthralls the ocean
the way a prodigal weeps
at the shore?
It all happened here.
My wife asleep upstairs
embroidering dreams
through houses filled with
family living and dead. She
accepting our day's first kiss
& sighing I love you as
I stroke her arm slowly
in the yet wakened dark.
It's revering something
deeper than mere
dark reverence.
The essence of our hearts
long distilled, spilled and
reabsorbed through
the worst hours of labor
and worry and pain.
James stroking Buster in
his lap in a bright corner
of the room, the grey cloak
which hides both now in
death a silvery wool
balled at their feet.
Our grandparents having coffee
on the back porch. Rilke and
Roethke playing croquet through
their rhymes. Four 757s lost
on Sept. 11 crossing over,
nearing home.
And everywhere the ocean
I heard long ago
on brilliant mornings when
there was only sand to sea
and my mother's voice in the air,
laughing, singing, calling my name
inside my name inside my name.
Waves to the third power
kissing the innermost shore.
Cat laying in the window
still sensing God in the screen,
alert in an infinitely sprawled calm,
one paw extended,
getting more than enough.