TEXTURE AND IMAGE

rough hewn
gnawn from roots

or tree carved
affixed at right angles

stood aright
where roads intersect

at the centers of towns
above places of prayer

making maps of sky
pointing through woods to

coasts piled with sand
shells and rocks

worn round the necks of
virgins and lumberjacks

as tokens, as troths of faith
chiseled from hard quarried beliefs

lashed to the souls of believers
their inner voices shaped

by seers and dowsers
treading tortuous furrows

digging planting kneading
to evince from earth

something more clear than
the melted snow streams

flowing down exalted mountains
where finite life waits

on this tiny satellite
of a small burning white star

at the edge of an unnoticed galaxy
on the left side of the great god's

galloping universe where he sent
some attachment of himself once

who couldn't avoid the pitfalls
of men's foibles though he left

tablets of his love on every surface
he himself expired on that cross
of cultures he was sent to bridge


(c) Gay Reiser Cannon * All Rights Reserved