How can I work when
the pines and
their twin flames
on the river
won't let me go,
at least until
I am a thousand
light wings
circling in the heart
of the unknowable,
and believe me,
Shelley could not have
written a poem
this shattering,

and it will break me before
it creates me.

And do I have to return
to the trenches
when the doe is moving
like a rippling sculpture,

and she knows what I mean,

and the ordained squirrel,
all fur and ecstasy,
is converting the last
of the fear
I dragged along,

and what use is ambition
under this sky I just found—
bubbling sky,
tumbling banquet,
within reach
whenever I'm ready,

too savory for
one lost planet,

but we should still
dive in, and quickly,
because beyond that, and
beyond that,
is a church

and it's singing.

Can you hear it now
that billions can fit
into one dream,
and this is the empire
God imagined?

Now let it be said,
and said forever,
this is the kingdom
we became.


Patricia Joan Jones