Allison Grayhurst writes

  Building Walls of Personal Mercy

It is us without the air - 

leverage, no height, 

clinging to discipline not 

because we fear we will float, but 

to stop ourselves from sinking 

into the immense dead mire dread, boulevards 

of toxic fumes rising 

from wastelands, landfill sites gone 

under water into our heart-space, 

body-space, collapsing.

It is us blind to the fullness of fun, 

proclaiming praise on a settled angel’s shoulders. 

Around a field, running to milk 

the burning lungs of their breath, 

touch duty with presence of mind, to do service 

so curtains don’t close like sealing metal sheets, 

lest moving becomes momentous, then impossible.

Take fruit from the windowsill, 

it is our ripeness cradled in the lonely early morning – 

prayers, a battle against a threatening tide.

Watch the birds with me, 

make peace with the emerging worms. 

We know our place, what can save 

and what is substitute.

 

 Worms -- Wilhelm Neusser