Poems

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here

to bless the falling snow.

Let it bury us and all our cares and pains and bury

every one of our wishes and preoccupations, especially

the ones we think are most important.

Let it, which neither scorns nor loves, but falls

on all our lives with the same indifferent silence,

inter our pasts and bury every one of our dreams as well.

We pray you, blessed snow, to leave bare spots

beneath the apple trees for winter birds to peck for

seeds, but otherwise, please blanket our incessant

chatter beneath the frigid benediction of your

whiteness so we can pull up the covers of our beds

and burrow even deeper into sleep like hibernating bats

and bears and not emerge until the ides of March

and maybe not until the ides of May.

© 2012 J.M. Keating

All day long on

a long day’s journey

south to Cartagena,

through lonely hills

and empty roads

and sheets of April rain,

I thought about your hands,

the ones you fear

look just like a man’s.

And wondered if you knew

that in my eyes your

hands are wings, your

hands are lips.

and sometimes flames

and sometimes roots

with ten white stalks that

burrow through the sleeping

earth in search of light.

All night long a

black wind slammed

against the house in

which I slept and threads

of rain the color of slate

hissed against the window

near my bed.

In the morning

in clear blue light

I rose from dreams

of thorns and snow,

to see pink jasmine bloom

outside the window,

to hear the songs of birds

in the throats of hyacinths,

and feel the petals tumble

from my own mouth

like prayers,

into your hands.

© 2012 J.M. Keating

As the heat of August afternoons
invaded your home above the
trees in this Mediterranean
port, we opened the windows, like
sails to catch a breeze, any
slip of wind, to comfort you.

From the street below us, the
sad sound of an accordion
floated up like a prayer, but
you, in your skirt of
fire, couldn’t hear it.

(Anyway, it was just another
prayer, like all of ours and
all of yours, none of which
were ever answered.)

It’s Winter now with
ice and snowdrifts
here in this mountain
village far from
your empty
bed on the other
side of this world.

I wanted to be with
you when you
left us, to be in the
crowd on the
platform waving and
crying as your
train pulled away with
the sound of our tears
growing fainter every
second until you could
barely see us anymore as
you passed into the white
silence with only the
comfort of knowing how
much we still see you,
still moving in the
empty spaces in
which you used
to bring your
light into our lives.

© J.M. Keating 2021