Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts & Letters Volume 4, Issues 1 & 2 | Page 15

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This morning, snow out the window, under
a silver-white ceiling of mist, and though
I’ll never feel all my own atoms jittering
in their molecular constellations,
nor will I shiver to my interior
storm of electrons caught in their spins,
I did breathe in more conscious keeping
with all those quiet crystalline forms
on the trees, over the grass, the rooftops
and street. I knew, they were not asleep
anymore than the moon or Jupiter, no
more than the scattering bones of the dead
in the floating crust under our feet. So close
and so distant, desire, everywhere
grasping and hauling—even the snow
and the souls of the saints are restless.
A bus came grinding slow to its stop
at the corner, swallowed two jacketed guests,
and grumbled off. The steamy exhaust,
suspended awhile in the cold air
like a protogalaxy, dispersed,
and I did welcome a shudder
up through my chest—it was the peace
of belonging, kin with disconsolate dust.

!!Assisi!!!9!