Mortar and pestle made of brass,
these and two solid candlesticks
were heavy fortune, her penance
for being peasant born and mixed
by impure stars to common metal
in a foreign land. But the level
to which she raised her hands in prayer
each Sabbath eve was holy: lips,
eyes, heart purified by the tares
that softly burned, the week eclipsed
of wrongs she placed upon her head
in blameless white, reflecting there
the migrant image of a light
that moved a wilderness of tents,
made rivers part and mountains cry
the voice of God. All this she meant
by keeping Sabbath in her home
and polishing the brass like gold.
MODERN PRIMITIVE
When morning breaks
at the edge of night
and the stone mind drops
to its plain of light
it does not help
to think of Newton.
What we really need
is a new invention
a mental jet
faster than the speed
of yawn and stretch
in the life we lead
or a time lift
on spatial pulleys
operated by
the lids of our eyes.
PERSONAL HISTORY
This calendar is one, unduplicate
and unrepetitive, being my own.
What system it may have I leave testate
in the genes of time as my memento
of the events, holidays, and seasons
that made the living so importantly
mine: a personal history of nones,
kalends, and ides, without chronology.