Firebird

I pray in Lenten Masses

for a word from God –

a few words come

at the park gates: a winding path,

a rockery of daffodils and aquilegia;

a bird, not the recurring

bird with the broken wing dream –

but a dove kissing a child,

and, as they kiss –

white fire

and a room filled with laughter.

Rosary

A copper liqueur is spent across floorboards,

         scent fills the room: dip-dyed daisies –

Porthmeor blue. I depend on Byzantine stones,  

their sacred chant, each stone a prayer,

a meaning we cannot fathom yet,

and want to inch through pierced space

to know if there is life after halfway.    

One break and each stone will roll

to the corners of the room, but I know 

there is only one way to be: fastened

to beads of dreams, each a salve. I’m afraid

of empty space, of becoming the woman

who slept but never dreamt. Until dreams

come, I scroll the stones across my palm,

one at a time or several together, feel

them touch and move apart, hear rocks

muttering at tide-turn, mouthing a mantra,

always create at the edge of the sea

                         at the brink of possibility.