Antiphony With Rising Wings Kim Welliver
Why this loss? One might as well ask “when” of the windfallen peach, or of the sky weaving its last dusk on a purple loom. Each day ends. Evening comes when it comes, veiled as a nun. Pipistrelles fill the trees. Is the bat any less lovely than the dove? It keeps the night with its high-pitched song. Feathered or furred, it makes no difference. We watch lives pass like a book, half-remembered. Beloved faces blurred as foxed pages. A chill company of doubt surrounds us, dismantling our family. Our saint’s supplications and rosary beads seem just as probable as the bone, the twigs, the twist of hair in a juju bag. Everything is fruitless as we bend under static lights, genuflect
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