My Father’s Son

Great big tears weep from the sky.
I wonder at why the heavens have cause to cry.
And yet the tears embrace me as I dance
in the mud, on the ground.

Their tears encumber me with their wet weight,
Endrenching my clothes in their embrace, melting
One tear into the next, becoming altogether one,
One with each other, one with the mud, one with
The rains, with me and the sky.

And heavily my vestments cling to my flesh
Holding my shape as a hand caressing the form of
My body, the shell of my dwelling, and I
Feel not so much alone with myself, abandoned, but
Alone as one with the earth and sky.

Oh, had I eyes to see,
see all,
and ears to hear,
hear all,
a heart to feel,
all, all –
and yet — and yet
no tongue to speak,
Were I as an exile,
forced beyond my will
into silence –
A silence from which
perhaps, there is only hope;
for nothing long endures such silence –
Or, if it does,
it is like the blind fish
who dwell in the waters of a cave,
eyes still there, but no use to them:
appendages of futility.
Here, is my tongue like such an appendage –
groping in blindness for the words to express
all that lies silent in my soul.