2 posts from January 2007

Ruins

Here the king’s men came

and killed the pope’s men

and sacked the church

whose creed required good works

in addition to the merciful grace of God.

Aloof, the ruins stand witness,

crumbling more gracefully than dogma.

This is who we are, this is what we do,

a justifying joy on either hand.

Ad majoram Dei gloriam.

Prairie

Sunset, a vein of cold blood, empties into prairie grass,

reddens dun, dry stems rasping in wind.

Night, brighter than day, gibbous moon in ice-clear sky,

black trees suppliant, grass shining silver and still

Stiff-legged, a coyote lopes across the meadow,

shoulders hunched, head down, listening.

Moles infiltrate through a hole too small to find;

in petty terror we snap their necks with traps. 

But in the vision there is a bearskin on your shoulders,

you walk out, stone club in hand, steaming in the cold.

The cottonwood has entangled the moon.

                                                            Jim Boring