Sober Ground

Coral dawn spreads high in upper gazes. Like hinted pleasures, she ignites frosted roofs and gives breath to matted, sober ground. I sit back in my window chair and acquiesce. Daylight only knows honesty; there is no otherwise. Who gives, and why.

Record shops and libraries. Coffee with cinnamon. Advent pregnant with classism's son. A small boy casts his line over an unfrozen pond only to have it snag in the nearby tree. Mid-December without snow or ice.

Pangs for the truest homeland subside, for I am known. She who cannot hide. Or will not. The murshid has awaken in me the truest object of profound longing; I play and am played, like a reed flute separated from its maker. So the song softens in dawn, transposing minor keys into something sweeter.

There is a secret in the reed bed. Abandon supposition. Sway with the breeze. Come what may. My root and my heart in the watery gifts of our song.