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Smiling Death Songs and Other Poems
iv.   for jesus and maria (where rows run forever 
      and vanish into a diminished moon) ...

A pause.
In the field
day sheds its light,
consumes the dreams 
of father and son.

This is where He speaks. 
In the burning country  
of a thousand tongues.
I prophesy, 
see visions -- 

How is this possible?
I beseeched, yet You did not listen. 
I fasted, yet You did not answer.  
I surrendered, yet You admonished.
He is dead ... It is not possible.

(Where is the truth 
that You should abandon me?)

He died in a chicken coop,
his dreams fettered by black soil.
He was an alien 
in a strange nation:
the tiller of the Wild Land.

Father I'm enraged.
I come against You
with hoe and sickle.
If only You had read
his calloused palms --

(He was a pool of light 
in an earthen vase.)

How can this be --
he lies silent
in a forgotten field
where rows run forever 
and vanish into a diminished moon.

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