When was the last time you looked up
and allowed the clarity to rain down
and become your body?

The sky is more felt
and heard
than seen:
an a cappella blue,
a thousand names for joy,
a siren's delicate peril—
or is it simply a call to rise?

And what am I going to do
with all this purity?

I left myself for a
truer place and invited
everything privileged
to know that it lives
into my unearned freedom.

Yes, I know there is anguish in
the world and I know there's a
war going on between who we are
and what we became, and
there are empty people
with lost stories and
words gouging out our hope of
any justice and
lies pasted to a planet
with so much potential, but
living a cynical split-life,
a parody of comfort,
a trapdoor actually, leading
to high-voltage fear always
hissing under our skin,
whether we know it or not,
because the hate out there is
too real and too fertile,
and is worn
with pride like vestments
in a fiery mass.

A crowd of weeping faces
follows me to a honeyed field where
thoughts come to live.

A robin shines through
with the color

and faith

of martyrdom,
spreads its soft wings
and glides upon light.


Patricia Joan Jones