If I have faith, it’s that the world is sayable,
That I can find words for what I didn’t think could be said.
The weight of a stone fountain filled with clear water,
The sunlight that plunges through vacant clouds,
Thoughts that are just images, faces, words spoken
Without meaning, the way one room in a dream becomes
Another, how it resembles the room I slept in at my
Grandfather’s house, the deep red of the bricks,
The solidity of the white front door. There was a pine tree
In the front yard, and the sap thickened and dried
Between the shapeless tiles of bark, the smell of resin
That was left on my fingers, the infinity of acorns from
The live oak, the trunk that was older than anyone living
Who was not a tree. When my grandfather died, I didn’t
Know what to believe. When my parents died
Thirty years later, it wasn’t much different. I don’t have
The talent for belief. Their voices only come to me
In snippets, in crumbling pieces of tree bark, in the odor
Of pine or the feel of acorns rolling in my hand.
Published in ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Sep. 4, 2024.
