THE WRITING LIFE
Give me the names for things, just give me their real names,
Not what we call them, but what
They call themselves when no one’s listening –
At midnight, the moon-plated hemlocks like unstruck bells,
God wandering aimlessly elsewhere.
Their names, their secret names.

December. Everything’s black and brown. Or half-black and half-brown.
What’s still alive puts its arms around me,
amen from the evergreens
That want my heart on their ribbed sleeves.
Why can’t I listen to them?
Why can’t I offer my heart up
To what’s in plain sight and short of breath?

Restitution of the divine in a secular circumstance –
Page 10, The Appalachian Book of the Dead,
the dog-eared one,
Pre-solstice winter light laser-beaked, sun over Capricorn,
Dead-leaf-and-ice-mix grunged on the sidewalk and driveway.
Short days. Short days. Dark soon the light overtakes.
Stump of a hand.
– Charles Wright