Like every poem I blog, this is a draft poem in progress. But this one I’m pretty certain will make it into the next book. It came almost entirely on it’s own. I was trying to write something else, at a terrific workshop with WA-state poet laureate, Elizabeth Austen, and walked outside afterward kind of kicking myself that what I was trying to write wasn’t working. Then some fat rabbits at my feet startled me, I went and sat in a coffee shop on my own, and this showed up, almost in its entirety…
Beside the House of Worship
By the sea
on the sidewalk of my own neighborhood
grass-brown rabbits startle, dart away
on my walks I see more back feet
more flashes of tail
than peep-show patrons on pay day
Beside the wet sidewalk
in town near the center for the arts
after we poets convene
three fat black rabbits picnic
a fourth fellow yawns
a fifth, bathes conspicuously, back foot on high
I startle, look away
that was close, too much presence
more of God than I expected
I dart away home
my pastor is poetry
my imam imagination
my rabbis are rabbits
wow even poet gatherings
flashes of heaven my nuns on Sunday
can’t compare
come silence
come sweet true self
take patience by the hand
meet us outside in the tall grass
beside the house of worship