What does the dragonfly know
that I’ve forgotten? Skimming 
effortlessly across the ripples,
it lives and dies without 
even fearing the trout.

Cast your cares, we sing, 
but the datura trumpets: 
What do you even know
about total abandonment 
to divine providence?	

Think of water,
which all summer, swells, 
seeks depth, runs down and deep, 
and recklessly: so useful and
humble, precious and pure.

Hold nothing back,
the water gurgles: Give all. 
Through snowmelt, waterfall, and torrent,
bathe the foot of hiker, 
soothe the thirst of fawn.

Yet whether still or freefall,
water runs deep, seeps down, 
like a nail, and then, 
come winter, rises: 
Ice now skates surface of pond and stream.
It stitches a dazzling bright robe,
and swaddles overwintering 
flora and fauna—

Behold this liquid mirror
whose interlocking molecules of ice
transform murky streambed to dazzling glass,
and transfigure river’s 
dank dark belly to pristine solid beam,
reflecting light of sky,
uniting water with light,
joining “I” with “you,”
fusing two elements
into One.

What is transfiguration
if not the seed streaked 
with dirt and rain 
rising from disheveled earth?

Petals, after a summer rain, 
glisten in the morning light:
Thorny vine of summer unfurls, 
and heavy fruit taxes the branches.

But before the blossom,
sweat and ashes—and oh
the weight of doubt.

Transform this wait,
and pining—cross I bare—
that I too might participate 
in your transfiguration.

Light enters
the cornea
mysteriously
and scatters 
an image
in our mind
as inconspicuously 
as the approach
of the angel
in Mary’s room.

Sensing an abrupt
and warm presence,
Mary turns her gaze
to face the angel. 
For a moment,
their two faces
like two globes
illuminate each other,
the eyes drawn to the eyes,
eternity suspended
in a moment.
Not since Jacob
wrestled with his angel
was so much splendor
at arm’s reach.
Did she flinch
even for a moment
at the task before her,
at the luminosity around her?

Quite as suddenly,
the angel retreated,
leaving Mary to ponder
what she could never forget
and never quite retrieve:
He is the Icon of the invisible God,
and the firstborn of all creation.

Let us bless the quiet 
fleeting moments
shorter than breath
The sudden reversal of a swing
when everything hurtles you forward
The jolt of the coiled spring 
when the slinky accelerates down a stair
The infant’s animation
reflecting its mother’s gaze	
The rattle of the key 
releasing the lock

Oh, let us bless the quiet 
treasured moments
swifter than breath
The rustle of the startled heron
taking flight
The first ray of sun
chasing night
The quicksilver minnow
mirroring light
The force of the flower
breaking rock

And though these quiet
hallowed moments
are briefer than breath,
swifter than death, 
lightning strike, or 
the capricious twists 
and turns of the river—
still let us bless

For who can measure
the riot and quiet
of everything we’ve lost—
yarn unraveled,
kitten tangled in string,
rough tongue of cat,
everything that flowed through our arms
like water through permeable rock				
now vanished as sudden as thunderclap—
swollen stream after downpour,
peaceful interlude, water’s caress,
storm, stride, strike, stress—			

these too may we bless	

Everything lets go
in the end. The mortar
in the brick. The love song 
of the finch
come fall. 

Everything lets go 
in the end, the spinning 
of the top, the last drops of rain, 
even the skin of the molting snake.

My dog jumped into the Middle Fork
of the Gila River
and reached for tiny minnows—
Out they swam between his teeth
and back into the stream. Everything
lets go, trickles down, heaves itself
into the ground. The motion
of the celestial spheres pauses each evening
for the stargazers, the knot in the wood, 
the amber pearl of sap hardened 
against the rough bark of the tree. 
The thread lets go of the needle, the comb 
releases the hair, the flame 
absolves the wick. The lightning bolt, 
and then the silence. Think of Jesus, his hand 
washing Judas’ foot one moment, 
and then he let it go.

Like Galileo, he knew the world stops spinning
when love catches you off guard.

To see is to believe.
To long is to hope.
Teach me to hope
for what I cannot yet behold.
Remember Galileo:
Before the telescope revealed 
bright lights 
behind the dark curtain of space—
already those stars 
had overpowered
the dark.

So break me open in your hands—
pomegranate, bruised apricot—
seed me.
And breathe into me
the force 
that powers 
canyon floodwaters
at breakneck speed—
singing—
down the precipitous slope.

In another city, 
another home,
I once swept the floor
for Mother Teresa. 
She slept in that room 
the following night, 
and in the morning 
after she had left, 
a brother swept the room.
In the dustpan,
one hair. 

I opened the thesaurus
and then I realized that hope
is just another word for hunger
and that—although I appease it 
with the sweetest fruit
of the jungle, still, 
like the cat at my ankle, 
it will beg for more.

Yucca, rootbound porcupine,
stands at attention.
What are you guarding
with your green quills
straight as bayonets?
Did you ambush the juniper
with the camouflage needles?
You creep across the canyon
without tanks, refuel on sunlight.

Your fruit swells with the summer rain.

Clandestine plant,
you emerge unexpectedly
between sandstone rocks flecked with lichens
copious as the spots on a young cougar.

What secret do you oversee?
When the nocturnal moth emerges 
from rosettes coated with pollen,
do you stand at ease?

No wind ruffles
your stiff leaves 
as you stand sentry.

The infant wants milk, love, a lap, a lock 
of your hair, the glitter from the lake, 
even the moon. The child wants
a friend, a fort, time to play. The youth seeks
to divide and conquer, climb, achieve, win,
subjugate, wills to power and overpower, 
even to exert the power 
and influence to reject and scorn.

But then one day, whether by choice or force,
the adult releases, accepts, empowers
others.

Let my bones be a bridge, my hair
the buttresses in a nest, my dreams
wings for the creatures that fly. 
Let my words be the ripples
that resonate in the pond
and then, more thinly, more
obliquely, in the air,
though I have no breath.