David Schloss
Writing
At Daybreak
Adam
The earth seems featureless at first, then clear,
leaves stirring as I watch beneath the moon
flamingo-colored dawn come flaring soon
through azure air, and figures reappear.
Can I divine some patterns from the birds'
wings streaming through the envelope between
my vision and day's difficult new sheen,
to realize God's reasons, flown past words.
Great sacks of winds have captured all the mute
confessions from these darker holds of trees,
unfolding over loam-out where, torn free,
gnarled branches, roiling waters, flood the roots.
Yet, what I shed at night like shards wave-tossed along that shore, returning, still retains some sense of order caught within the strains of rising winds pressed out to sea and lost-
and such sad music fills me when I feel
I've given up all former visions of
forgiveness for not heeding His hard love
with equanimity, becoming 'real'...
Looking farther outward in this strict light,
we, too, feel swept apart, our bodies just
limbs swaying as we tumble like some dust
through air, giving rise to new thoughts of flight.
But why still play at half-forgetting why,
as lf each cruelty's no act of will,
our flesh breaks into differences that spill
new blood that spreads, once shed, across the sky?
Is it the fallen world, or sight's dim screen?-
the whole process projected like our dreams,
till nothing but our guilty knowledge gleams,
seeping into and over everything.
A Passionate Friendship
Like a father to a son,
like a son to a father,
they constantly changed
what they were to each other:
first one, then the other,
began to go somewhere,
held open a door
to some glorious future,
then politely stepped back
and bowed low to the other,
who in turn stepped forward
before returning to where
the first one stood waiting,
as polite as the other.
For neither would ever
pass into the future
unless both went together--
and as they grew older
they saw death from afar,
a mysterious door
they could never quite enter--
and so they remained,
rehearsing together,
rehearsing their pleasure,
so much did they care
for each other.