Reaching the Promised Land: And What to Do Then
Jeremy
She is wearing last summer's favorite sandals.
Her toes stick out, scratching fall's sandy earth.
She runs, heel to heel, flat feet flapping.
flap, flack, plash
Maybe it's a bird's nest falling from a branch.
The railroad sets splinters in fresh foot flesh
with every step. This is where he fell.
flub, blub, glub.
She parts her lips and prepares her tongue for his
name is rolled in her mouth like a hot joint.
She spits, to watch the water fall through
white, blue, grey
The walls of his absence are split by the un-
dulating colors in the stirring un-
derneath her feet. She has the current.
still, will.
Fragments from a Garden in The Waste Land
Remember white crosses on the road
side, that place where we stopped
to take pictures
when you were twelves and I was seven
and we were passed through with peace?
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shanith.
Shantih. Shantih. Shantih.
Planting a cross by the road
did bring some peace
to the place where you stopped.
Since you were seven-
teen you have been missing from our pictures.
Of course, we don't take as many picture
now. Shantih. Shantih.
I have well bridged the seven
year gap between us and have taken that road
only twice. I have not stopped
to search for some shallow peace.
No - at a death site there is never peace,
not the kind you find in pictures
of breathing bodies. I have stopped
looking. Shantih.
I am finished with the road
that finished you in eighty-seven.
Now the thunder says too much. Seven
seconds, seven miles of peace
stretch down to that road.
The lightning brings too many pictures -
Shantih. SHANtih. SHANTIH.
It's stopped.
We planted a cross where you stopped
breathing, when you were still seven
years older. Shantih.
I don't look at those pictures
we took there, on someone else's road.
I stopped looking for peace
seven years after we took them.