SISTER THOMAS INHALES CLEAR AIR

SISTER THOMAS INHALES CLEAR AIR

SISTER THOMAS INHALES CLEAR AIR

Leaf, burning
           not dying.
Was this how Moses found
           God
burning out a space
           at day’s end?
Trees, by the trunks and leaves,
           alight
as if amber, as if glass
           pulled
from the glassblower’s furnace
           – the quick emergency
of bird calls.
           And why would birds not
cry out,
           why would birds,
the turquoise-backed beetles,
           spiders curled in the rusty hinges
of trees,
           not know that all things are
at an end
           when the splendid face,
burning itself
           into the heart of the world,
is the face
           that, disappearing,
makes a bird,
           a person, cry
I am here?