For some of us, the amnion
is leaking — they don’t know
why, we don’t know why —
meanwhile inside others
of us the alveoli of the lungs
inflame, infect — they don’t
know why, we don’t know
why our friends lie in hospital
beds wrapped in sterile sheets
and guarded by machines — they
say, our friends, their bodies
hesitated, trembled mortally
with wanting to save what
waits to arrive, what is
preparing to leave. . . .
Sunlight filtered by
fluttering foliage
trickles across small
swaying faces, yellow
rays around a yellow
disk expressly perched
on stem’s end to tempt
the wind, a butterfly,
some curious child.
Not knowing explains
faith, believing experts
know from books from
experience from drawing
blood, measuring, recording,
counting the heartbeats
that seem to echo, leaving
us all to wait, the knowers
and unknowing who watch
vigilantly, half-asleep
in a trance of chemistry
and time and honestly no
one understands why,
so why does the silence
sound like prayer?
Afternoon rain falls
upon the tumbling, clear
creek of late August,
each droplet dimples
the pouring surface,
dilating into orbits that
coincide, spinning and
skipping downstream,
altogether absorbed.
We want to say we who
have done the loving know
what to do, know in our
bones the ancient spells
that lift us into the mother’s
lap, the fearless comfort
of being present in one
another’s eyes, yet here
inexplicably we pay
for bottled water and
tanks of air and trust
insurance to cover
what’s going wrong,
the inseparable kisses
impossibly forgotten.
Thunder growls,
rattling, detonating
the night air as
lightning flashes
through canyon
veins to ignite
the crouching
shadows, elusive
and so hungry.
Instinct knows about
finding the way home,
our friends, unbroken,
as they are, back to
familiar and simple
nakedness, the cries
of surprise, splashing
and wagging, ice cream
churning, the rising
chant, these webbed
harmonies holding and
rocking as stars fall
upon campfire sparks,
the smoke spirits dancing
in white-hot embers.
This mountain appears
jaunty, her rocky body
flaunts the snags where
glaciers and gales and
tectonic shifting have
upheaved immovable
tonnage, the multi-
faceted boulders flung
like exploded popcorn. | 
