Author: miguel

On this lovely afternoon in early Spring

I hope you hear the robins singing

And the conversations of the ravens

Croaking to each other croaky corvid things.

May you also see the crowns of oaks

and maples blooming into green and

watch tulips and narcissus stretch their

fingers up towards stars we cannot see.

And speaking of the heavens,

I hope that on this afternoon you’ve found

a little time to sit alone — a book, a sip of wine–

beneath a placid sky with perhaps a cloud

or two and with sufficient time

to paint your toenails blue.

© J.M.Keating, 2012

Today I want to make an altar

from the beauty of this day

and offer it to her–

the one without a mask,

the one whose eyes are peonies,

the one who opens hearts like wings.

On this altar she’ll discover the

sliver of a new-born moon,

a violin that dreams of Barcelona,

three tulips floating in a bowl of tears,

a curl of smoke, one candle,

but no flame, a book of hymns

to Aphrodite and two towers on a hill

at dusk, above the sea.

She’ll find a mask made from hours

splintered from the clock,

a mask behind a mask,

of amber-colored leaves,

a brow, transparent as the sky,

a throat of feathers painted blue,

a hidden, restless heart that

dreams of seas and winds.

Today I make an altar

from the beauty of this day

and give it to the flower-eyed one,

the one who needs no masks,

as if it were a nest of clouds

in which two red birds sing.

© 2004 J.M. Keating

A procession of penitents

wanders like a column of

sleepwalkers into the town

where they’ve been told

the Benevolent One resides.

Sprinklers water tidy lawns

in front of synagogues and

banks, shopping malls,

a football stadium and

other places of worship.

A runty dog guides the

flock toward Paradise, but has

to run for its life when the pilgrims

find a cardboard sign taped

to the Benevolent One’s front door:

“Gone fishing,” it says;

“Back soon.”

© J.M.Keating 2013