The wind,
still innocent,
still playing in the
chickweed and
some levitating ferns,
brings back to me
the airy gold,
the sugary madness,
the floating loss
of sixty-some summers.

I believe it is time
to join the living,

or better still,
become the lotus,
a holy ship upon the mud,
an origami scripture,
a hymn only the angels hear,
living sincerely
because it can.

But how is
that possible?

The world
chants as it
is swallowed.
How can it bear
such sublime
and exquisite pain?

God wrote
something here
(I believe it was:
"Unlimited")

but all I can see
are countless names
spelled out in smoke
as the sky pours
the last
of its drama
upon the ground—

the end is
erratic crimson,
thrashing love,
bleeding hills
and broken songs of praise:

Disquieting things
that taunt what
I’ve always believed.

So explain that.

As the branches
unmoor the moon,
set adrift
its legendary sail,

everything changes
in the fluid
secrets of night.
With an embracing glow,
another voice
in the cosmic choir
fractures what we call
darkness and

it’s now so comically clear . . .

Behind the farce,
behind the stage,
behind the dream,

There is nothing
but light
that never sleeps
and wins,
not with force,
but a word.

Patricia Joan Jones