The Hatching of the Heart. Margo Swiss

The Hatching of the Heart - Margo Swiss


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      light rain—

      soft, light rain rains.

      Living water reigns.

      Spring Buds

      In spring

      buds are sentient, multi-ocular, perceive

      light from everywhere.

      Sun’s air heats

      sheaths hour by hour

      melliferous cups, first filled,

      swells that dermis

      smaller than eyes can

      accommodate to

      burst, bloom.

      Audience

      Above all

      this green

      leaf-laden lushness

      in that tree

      I see

      from where first

      those double notes

      burst.

      The cardinal sings.

      Red-suited

      crowned

      he a-warbling rings out

      then double notes

      again.

      I am his

      only audience

      down here

      lonely for the taking

      ground bound

      listening for

      love’s call.

      I cry aloud, again

      please, again!

      He does so miraculously

      then such a wonder-

      ful life proclaim

      rejoicing.

      I stand below

      and know

      God too hears.

      Dilatation

      in summer

      this tree

      is rain-soaked:

      black bark, the smell

      of wood, lightning-burnt,

      cutaneous, so that it hurts,

      green, so that it dilates

      the eye

      in summer

      A Thin Place

      (for my mother)

      I’m just being quiet

      the flat line of your lips

      drawn over.

      just being quiet. . . .

      after years of war

      (long forgotten).

      The lash of events against

      her six-year-old scapulae—

      made to strip bare before

      hands tore flesh, a blur of

      eyes and teeth, unleashed to

      drive the point home—

      the little upon the least.

      Later, in the bath

      her welts blister and burn

      raw to the touch,

      after long hot days when bladder scalds

      from dehydration of summer sweat

      and too many tears wept

      so her eyes swelled.

      Or night commands to

      shut up your coughing:

      her throat ached, trying to,

      trying not to

      flinch in the way of

      drunken curse or

      hand slug in the face:

      don’t you dare

      talk back.

      One ragged sleeve of pain

      worn inside out

      so none heard

      the scream, rolled up so tight

      she’d need to bite down

      to swallow the cry whole,

      felt like

      forever. . . .

      One day

      the angels came

      woke her breathless

      whispering her name:

      a day so heavenly

      everything

      for a time

      slowed

      down

      (heart beating in her mouth)

      saw sun rise

      burst into her eyes

      such a large fair green place

      space enough to stand straight up in—

      And then

      she said, mommy,

      I’ve seen God!

      Sunflowers

      “and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”

      (Psalm 19.6)

      God’s Sun

      flowers flames green-gold

      lines gone forth out of Him—

      takes truants a-sudden

      hauls holds steady

      heart to heart—

      rends not garments

      the will clean clothed anew

      in the sheer mercy-might of Him—

      then

      fires again

      even greater gold—

      the heat thereof

      being His

      only.

      Manitoba Trees

      Poplars aglow surely know of times to come,

      simply throw themselves into life—

      reckless as lovers, reel sideways

      skyways, any way, agile beyond belief

      every leaf angling, spun in sun

      awash with light

      in spite of dry heat.

      What does it mean

      that these brave trees seem eternally bent upon

      such a vast chloroplastic blast

      long to outlast their first June greening

      too soon cast down, silvered

      under God’s own eye?

      May we never forget

      their photosynthetic rush against all odds


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