Narcissus (and other poems)

Narcissus

I gazed, once and now
again,
a Narcissus
into the soul-mirror
of a pool of ink
(once, and now a lake of level light):
Seeking an Echo
of my experience.


The asking

When asked on bended knees--
face to the floor and
heart
(I imagine) held in cupped hands heavy --
when asked, as I was saying,
to ask for anything,
Silly Solomon
(as yet unwise) asked for
open ears to sprout
on that heavy heart
of his.

We say today,
wisdom
of the request that day
because hearing hearts are so few and far
between that few would know
what to do with one
if we stumbled across it
on the street
let alone the pages of an ancient
book.


Fine wine (and the third day sign)

And while we lolled about,
crooning our raucous requiems
to lost innocence and
leaping gazelles,
toasting a tipsy epithalamion
and humming our homesick
hymeneal
till no eye in the place, nor throat was dry
but every cup
as dust, was empty,
He asked for water.

Then raised a glass
to life
breaking beautiful, full-bodied
against the palette
with a lingering bouquet of
earth, and smoke, and fresh new spice
in the nose and
at the veins and
to the coursing heart--
he set it down (the toast)
brimming with bright red wine.

We marveled, all, of course
and three days later marveled all the more
when like a cork sliding sharp
from a gaping bottle's mouth
the stone rolled back and first-born feet
stepped out
(with the faintest pop, perhaps?):
the grave like a sea of water splashing open
that the wine-red blood within
at last might breathe.