Taos, NM

The next morning, Jayber Crow was trimming hair and
eavesdropping on my mind.
I let the world know
(as it is not as though
the world knows how to keep to itself) —
Taos Valley in the background,
tin-can-coffee strategically placed —
and Matt commented on my story to say:
”Now THAT is a good morning.”

Two pairs of feet up on the bench.

Left my jacket for Standing Deer,
(a gift from Dad),
in exchange for Blue Corn,
(a gift from Dono).
Zia knew that healers would understand
and on Christmas Eve,
the medicine man gave me
Seven Sisters in acrylic
to signify spiritual awakening.

Fingers pointing at the moon
from above the system they’re in,
and it is metal down below.

Time is a machine.

There are gears and glass and industry
in the Milky Way, and I didn’t come down
quite so ready to throw out
penal substitutionary atonement.

It is an atrocious clock.

There are depravities
as hells in and of themselves
and evils as objective as gravity
in The Fall.

Timelessness is Love.

The Beginning and The End.

The Three of them entered into the ticking
with their One Life so furious and
hellbent on rescue
that its gates could never stand a chance,
and I knew that I would never
have my head wrapped around god,
and it was liberation.

And so the fire was burned away.

You see, ma?
I make all things new.

At any rate, the frost evaporated
as the morning went on, and Jayber talked
about how there’s always more to a story
than can be told, like a handful of wheat
drawn out of the granary.

Don’t I know it?
Don’t I know it?

Retrieved my photogenic coffee,
thanked god for honoring
the intentions I set to face my fear
(he knew I was hunting horcruxes),
and for not departing from me in the process,
or kicking the dust off of his feet
outside my door.

“Of course not,”
he seemed to say:
“You’re my home.”