Author: Tom D'Evelyn

WORK IN PROGRESS

As it gets colder

the stairs to the top further

my let room higher

the view of the moonlit streets

below more compassionate

II

Behind me shadows

move. I turn around. A book

is all, open to

where we last read together

the Comedy, the light on.

III

Up here, the mind clears,

disappears, the lamp dims with

dawn. The page pales. Sounds

drift from below, the ranked world

awakes from love’s otherness.

IV

What happened last night?

Why did it end abruptly?

I followed in vain.

I, hunter of form, lover

of form. They melt to my touch.

IMPERFECT TANKA

Buddha and Dante

agree: only Hell awaits

Republican and Democrat

at each others’ throats while Earth

makes a home for sun and moon.

VII

Nibbling at my ear,

“Wake up!” says my deepest one.

“It snowed last night! Look!

All new! My foot prints showing

the fresh path I took last night!”

VI

Safe at last, I pick

myself off the floor, slowly.

Night has news for me:

You fall into my strong arms,

no matter how high you dream.

WORK IN PROGRESS

”If there is a correct answer to the question: “What is the Tao?” it is: “I don’t know.” Thomas Merton

TANKA

Trees flare in cold blue

New England. I stare out fogged

windows. In Ukraine,

Russian conscripts rape children.

Life is intolerable.

II

i.m. Marion Wrye, Riverside

I wake in the dark.

From across the Providence

a cry comes. My old,

sick friend dies. In her faint voice

the light of the fading stars.

III

Day dawns. Not good nor

evil claims the daybreak, nor

is good proportion-

ate to my measureless needs.

Bright clouds reform on the Bay.

IV

Noon. The blank page. I

am fresh out of ideas.

In the empty bowl

of water, my cat’s gaze be-

yond my sweet sovereign self.

V

I have met someone.

That’s all I can say. We talk.

Afternoons, endless

before, shorten our walks; our

conversations; silences.

.

WORK IN PROGRESS

I wake early. Cold

floors to the bathroom and back.

Once back in bed, I

am not yet thinking.

A mourning dove—soft, clear, else-

where. A song of sorts.

Sleep calls. The dove calls.

Things to do but not quite yet.

An unfinished verse,

a prayer: what makes

possibility possi-

ble, what makes good good.

WORK IN PROGRESS
”One might stress that flesh is the incarnation of value.” Desmond, THE INTIMATE UNIVERSAL, 255.

Ecstatic Autumn.

I’m beside you as we walk

under foliage

drifting down—mid-af-

ternoon sunset—bright embers

cold as my hands in

your small warm hands for

now. In our flesh time’s word says

what we cannot say.

And what of the blue

overhead, tender? I squeeze

your hand. There is more.

WORK IN PROGRESS

“The existence of things outside God … about which he cares … is best explained by …the notion that God himself is characterized by…ecstatic love…” Catherine Osborne, EROS UNVEILED (OUP, 1994) commenting on Divine Names.

A wet tongue nibbling

my boot laces among chips

and tissues. “Hello,

my little man! In-

troduce me to your mistress!”

Our first winter storm.

Ecstatically

Eros makes the rounds. Her head

buried in the news.

No doubt these big raindrops

are the fruit

rewarding prayers. — Buson (trans. Merwin)

Waiting for rain, I

carry my umbrella. Grass

crunches as I walk.

With every step,

a prayer to end the drought.

The heavens open;

despite my efforts,

my umbrella is stuck shut.

I get wet, happy

as a dog, made a-

ware prayers are answered for

the poor in spirit.

WORK IN PROGRESS

“Here, given creation is not a part, but as apart, it is its own whole. It is not the absolute; it is a finite whole.” Desmond, God and the Between, 253.

Nice days are fewer

this summer. It’s true all o-

ver, but still, a break

in the heat causes

the heart to whine like a dog,

so we take a walk.

Light piles cloud on cloud

above the cove, silently

ducks patrol the cove,

the cove focuses

the attention. It’s why we

forget climate change.

Which is not to give

up on the world. The world tran-

scends us. We pass on.