The Blanket

I hear change.
Pressing my ear to the earth and its stirring bones,
baby vibrations kiss my skull,
I close my eyes and smile;
I detect approaching footfalls.
In conversations, the sketchy sparks of electrified embryos,
these restless hatchlings of hybrid hopes
spring from incubation, fall from lips and
onto my shirt, shoes and into the dirt we walk on.
They are not lost shards of fragmented dreams.
I choose to believe they are seeds.

I hear change.
Surrounds me: a lyric of tongue spoken with hands and feet,
a melody of ideas, philosophy, theology
married to passion in search of a savior
fashions a harmony, this whispered anthem
scratches my ear.
It is not an elegant sound, these staccato pinging
sutures of suffering sewn into faces
of mommies and daddies staring at babies
unconscious to thundering ticks of time
countdown seconds to roll call;
masses lined up for closeted stations in Purgatorio Nuevo.
And notes of simpatico silence as cellos
mourning the passing of faith in the night,
struggle to harmonize poorly with courage,
that blood of the ages which oils fear and flight;
I hear it.

I sense change.
I cannot feel it. The wind won’t reveal it. I’m numb to its presence.
I find no evidence trail on my tongue,
nor DNA refugees hiding in fingertips.
These trained eyes strain to identify
its invisible silhouette walking among us, and fail.
Yet, it is coming.
I know this because it is cold in here.
I should be shivering but I am not.
An other-earthly cloak has fallen,
cast around myself, its warmth just barely
coats me with a holy intuition.
Wrapped and huddled on front porch step,
eyes fixed upon that dark horizon
expectation welds me to this patient space
where, as prodigal children returning to rescue,
christening streaks of breaking light
will herald our transformation.

2011 Sojourner109