∧
font size
∨

Hymn (1): What Precedes Eternal Day

Nicole Rollender

Alternative content

Outside the birds are dying of cold on their branches,
and you’re looking for a way into heaven.
Break me of being woman, break me of talking to the dead.
How could you know how my lips hurt when you haven’t kissed?
Rest your forehead on the hearth. When the fire is out, the spirit
tingles with contrition.
                                   Consider these miracles:
a circle for the woman who chases her shadow,
a bag of portable fields,
a mother who plants skulls in soil and grows sunflowers,
one hour in praise of a hummingbird.
Let the wolves within me say their names. These hands, furrow.
Let asps crawl
                                   into logs. Let this tree be saved.
God can’t dip his fingers in spring water. Neither
can the dead. Woman, lower your bucket and drink
in your Lord. He can’t cut these split carcasses on the block—
a butcher must crack backbone and find the deepest vein
to drink. Through the wide earth the promise goes,
I cry for you, God, who has no
                                  hands or feet on earth anymore.
Release your hands into mine, your tree unrooting
in the storm you spit out.