One Word
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
Bring forth what you can.
He considers nothing provincial.
Even with your head bowed he sees your tears.
Let him pick the muslin cloth of your life
from the thorn bush. It is his business to sew you
back together.
Every touch of his forehead
is a beckoning. The five words are one word: Come.
Lift your face, move closer. He is crying too.
Each Step
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
After awhile, miracles lose their sense
of the miraculous, which is, in itself, a kind of miracle.
What will be delegated as reality today?
Will the lamb you carry in your heart turn
into a lion? As it is, we walk with birds tied
to our wrists, and the wind’s voice
is inconsistent, and shadows puzzle the road.
But Ray, each step counts as a goodness.
Something Majestic
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
Something majestic stands behind you.
Tomorrow is the beginning of time.
The causeless cause is none other than
something majestic standing behind you.
Something that knows tomorrow
is the beginning of time.
Nothing
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
Someone asked me
at the motivational workshop
what would I do without fear.
“Nothing,” I said. And I could tell
that wasn’t the answer
they were looking for.
We Are All Born from Worship
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
We are all born from worship.
Through the long ground
of experience, and dreams that slip
from the mind, somehow we strike
the common chord at least three times.
The cedar tree, even without wind,
trembles it’s branchlets, like feathers, shaking
out the birds with sky in their bones.
All Night a Mouse
by
Jennifer Angelina Petro
All night a mouse gnaws on the wood frames
behind my bedroom wall. With so little sleep,
I try to get up and into the spirit of things,
as the early morning, sidewise sun, invites the play
of light. Birdsong phrases the day’s narrative. It’s time
to be my own ark and gather in the animals of my devotion—
safe from the already sprawling storm of thoughts.
He hears me coming in advance—in my mind’s dark light,
and soon the names–their tones—inner, and long tones
–each one a song—start floating just above the flood.
How does he do it? This ceaseless pulling me from the horizontal
to the vertical? I know he’s there most even when I don’t see him.
Abandoning myself to that faith–the self-searching heart
that’s grafted to the infinite–That is all his grace.
I have done nothing really.
Somehow, he puts up with the mouse of my wants
chewing on the bones of the life he has given.
Somehow, he loves my darkness best. For that is where
his all-joyful light lives—lives in nam, lives in
those words—those radically musical words
that own me–my knowing truly, wonderingly, whispering
in my every moment–such a fundamental notion—just repeat
some names. What could be simpler than that? A mountain,
high above the waters—waits for my ship to go aground.
The Bhringi Wasp Hums
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
The bhringi wasp hums
to its stung-dead prey.
The moonbird gives darshan
to the frogs. The heron
shakes its wings, and feathers lift
into the night sky, like
dandelion seeds on the wind.
Someone started a fire
by the creek that you think
is put out, but every time you go near,
it flames up again. All night
simran drifts through the trees
arranging its syllables
into songs.
I lived short-sited and fickle—always
afraid—but with a touch
of imagination. The humming
is stirring me awake.
The feelers tremble over
my body– fanning it alive.
Drinking Milk from Poison
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
The old man steps from the revolving cave
and goes down to the lake, where he bathes
and turns into a swan.
The little boy in the egg with wings listens
to the night sounds, and fades back to sleep
for a thousand years.
Ravidas made shoes, Guru Nanak tended a farm
in Kartarpur, Kabir wove shirts, and Mirabai–she
spun out of control into the streets shouting her longing.
Radiance, sometimes you feel like a butterfly
turning back into a caterpillar, but Charan drinks milk
from poison and offers you a glass.
Your job is to stop shouting: “Look at me! I have
an arrow in my leg!” and get back to singing.
Your wound is only part of who you are.
The Terrifying Now
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
It’s impossible to explore the celestial regions in a badger’s head.
No one can stop November leaves from curling their brown hands.
Programs at funerals are like unanswered letters to immortality.
Who hasn’t found a feather-headed moth dried up on the windowsill?
Winter’s ingathering starts after swarms of snowflakes baffle the traffic.
Bright faces of sunflowers track the sun in a wide-arc, only to end by looking at the ground.
What we go around guarding everyday will eventually fall from our hands.
Go ahead and try, but no one can outrun the following dawn.
The silent teachers will always come down from the mountains to beg for food.
Radiance, what I’m trying to say is–the age of the trinity is gone.
Azrael’s near, offering you the blade he’s brought for your wrists.
It’s OK if you use it because those upstart daffodils will still rise from the snowy ground.
We All Know
by
Radiance Angelina Petro
Maybe the scales that fell from Saul’s eyes
coalesced into a fish and leapt into the sea.
Maybe they were snakes that fell forming one snake
that sidewinded its way back to Mira’s tent.
I’m guessing they were ashes that rose into the sky
to become a murder of crows on the gates to Damascus.
But once he became Paul—we all know he rode his horse
triumphantly, madly into the future, trampling
generations of women into the dust.