Crossing Days on the Calendar

                                  By Rudolph Lewis

A distant sun and cool breezes open

brown cones of the green-spindled pines

an autumn sheen tops schoolyard trees

I tell myself in these twisting hours

He hears my cry, day after day,

as I mark Xs on the wall

calendar in my dark dark room

Yet deep in the solitary night

my heart groans like an old dorr

my bed slides off the wall

my breath rolls away

All at hand is the doctor’s pill

& a photo on the dresser

her dog tags a cold burn on my neck

My son whines for his mommy

under the refrigerator magnet, his

crayon drawings of bombs and tanks

We hang between heaven & earth

not knowing whether angels or beasts

will place hot coals on her breast

I fall on my face, and call out

to Him, “Let these bloody battles

pass her on the road to Baghdad”

This vision won’t let me go 

night after night the parched spirit

23 November 2003