Scraping Our Knees

BOUGAINVILLA LAZARUS BLOOM
—David Humphreys, Stockton

(Jesus saith: Didst not I say to thee that if
thou believe thou shalt see the glory of God?)

Spread out resurrected from its frozen solid year
of broken pipes and ants’ swarming infestation
above the front step entrance, now a Cardinal’s
brilliant red satin cassock flower administers genuflection
and a benediction of cathedral proportions, several
years perhaps having passed since Jacob’s lost innocence.
Imagine his desert filled with incidental radiance.
Everything here and now would certainly resolve
upon the issue. Take it upon yourself to find another
explanation but it has been done so many times before,
each time inexplicably filled with wonder. Do this
and celebrate and life may bloom voracious rimmed
with many serrated razor rows.

(Homage to Theodore Roethke’s “Root Cellar”)

________________________

NEAR THE WALL OF A HOUSE
—Yehuda Amichai

Near the wall of a house painted
to look like stone,
I saw visions of God.

A sleepless night that gives others a headache
gave me flowers
opening beautifully inside my brain.

And he who was lost like a dog
will be found like a human being
and brought back home again.

Love is not the last room: there are others
after it, the whole length of the corridor
that has no end.

(translated by Chana Bloch)

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INVOCATION TO DSILYI N'EYANI
—Navajo song

Reared Within the Mountains!
Lord of the Mountains!
Young Man!
Chieftain!
I have made your sacrifice.
I have prepared a smoke for you.
My feet restore thou for me.
My legs restore thou for me.
My body restore thou for me.
My mind restore thou for me.
My voice thou restore for me.
Restore all for me in beauty.
Make beautiful all that is before me.
Make beautiful all that is behind me.
It is done in beauty.
It is done in beauty.
It is done in beauty.
It is done in beauty.

_______________________

THE IMAGE OF YOUR BODY
—Rumi

You've made it out of the city,
that image of your body, trembling with traffic
and fear slips behind.
Your face arrives in the redbud trees, and the tulips.

You're still restless.
Climb up the ladder to the roof.
You're by yourself a lot,
become the one that when you walk in,
luck shifts to the one who needs it.
If you've not been fed, be bread.

(Trans. by Carl Barks)

_______________________

THE JACOB'S LADDER
—Denise Levertov

The stairway is not
a thing of gleaming strands
a radiant evanescence
for angels' feet that only glance in their tread, and need not
touch the stone.

It is of stone.
A rosy stone that takes
a glowing tone of softness
only because behind it the sky is a doubtful, a doubting
night gray.

A stairway of sharp
angles, solidly built.
One sees that the angels must spring
down from one step to the next, giving a little
lift of the wings:

and a man climbing
must scrape his knees, and bring
the grip of his hands into play. The cut stone
consoles his groping feet. Wings brush past hiim.
The poem ascends.

_______________________

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry, photos and art, and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)