The vigil

We say that love is all in all

And still we keep this watch

For the lover: Agnes on sandals

Through the dust, a winding sheet

Around the plain body

Of love's plain work;

Diana's heels on cobblestones

Through the blue gown of evening;

All those who walk the shore

Of the world.

Love is vicarious. Love seeks

Itself. Love makes luscious salt

For its own wounds. It sees everything.

Creates unrecognizable sounds,

And burns out every hope. It makes sin

A gift, the heart's rift bigger.

One night I stopped to life

A wounded dog from the roadside.

Its breath labored, its open eyes

Blinked and glazed like puddings

Under water, and a voice told me,

Abandon counting, no scale

Will be sufficient, no sentence

Long enough. You can't say it,

But it's here, an ocean.

Why do you still lie

On shore and keep this vigil?

COPYRIGHT 1999 Association for Religion and Intellectual Life
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning