Check my watch: it's the eleventh hour
Keep my eyes on the skies
Where is the answer?
Is it in sun's blinding light piercing my watering eyes?
Or is in moon's pale coolness as it washes out skin to a ghost of itself?
All the noise is carried away on the wind.
All except the ticking of the clock.
Eleven and thirty
And still no signs
But still I look up.
Eleven and forty-five.
Minutes tick away, pulling beats from my heavy heart
as I sit and wait;
A vow to keep hope inside this fragile vessel
To prevent its seepage through the cracks.
Eleven and fifty-six
Finds me no longer silent
but screaming to the trees
They have no answer, shushing my sharp cries with their dry leaves whispering in the cool air.
Not even their deceiving painted faces can convince me to lift my gaze back to them.
I begin to embrace my abandonment,
Wringing out my pain like a filth-soaked rag,
Finally bringing the ugliness out for airing;
for the earth to take from me.
I watch as the sad water squeezes through ruined cloth
and runs down the rocks like tears.
I listen for the ticking, but it has ceased.
Eleven and fifty-nine
and you are there
in the warm embrace of the sun
in the calm of moon's light
in the comforting hushing of the trees' autumn leaves
in the accepting earth below my feet
sifting through my offering of pain.
You are here
reminding me
I cannot earn grace.
It surrounds me although I refuse to take it.
And you wait
for me to breathe in its endless supply...
