Turning, Tossing

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TURNING, TOSSING


If ecstasy, never yet of the taken up 

variety. Visions limited to lightning


bugs, September sky, a heavenly host

of other sights available to most. Tongues, 


sure, but strictly of colloquial kind.

There was one time I prophesied,


but I must confess it more of a guess. 

The Apostle put it best: to some this, some


that, flecks of divine razzle-dazzle

sprinkling down like heaven's dandruff


to settle on unsuspecting sleeves. And then

to some of us none of these, with—oh jeez—


a keen awareness of the dearth:

can't quite find heaven, can't quite love earth.


If it's a gift, this stubborn stupor

in which we slog, we'll know it only


when the fog lifts from the surface

of more than the cow pond and we rise


to sip of waking's sweet relief, a coming-to

all the sweeter given a while longer yet


of faithful thrashing in these tangled sheets.


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