Day 67

(starting with a line from Joseph Stroud — from his poem Stitching the Woe Shirt)

As if sorrow were an ax  As if I could wield an ax
over shards of memory,  carapace of rubble
under the achingly gray sky   As if the heart were a wedge
holding anguish apart from a meadow 
where milkweed grows and it’s summer, stunningly hot,
where day breaks with a promise of heat to come
As if there were a place where no viciousness entered
As if grief could split wood, lay bare
the savaged living core  As if
my hand were a path  As if threads
of sorrow were woven through concrete,
could crack it open, reveal the tender flesh
beneath: soft bodies unburied, those
on whom Gaza fell, slowly become earth 
As if sorrow could name them hold them render them
(like an ax) a torrent of stars  Field of drifting stems