Gliding, gliding — centered sure
The new mother draws her baby near.
Things hold together; the center cannot shift.
A new revelation is at hand!
Finger tips touch finger ends,
Foreheads to kisses bend.
Holy water sifting down
Glasses clinking to the sound.
The best exult!
The worst slouch hellishly toward bedlam!
Surely something new is at hand!
Surely a second, third or even fourth coming is at hand.
But even before I am on the roof,
An epiphany!
I am barely up
When a familiar rushing wind
Buries the slow churning thighs in the bottom of the next cradle.
Pitiless lens, mechanical bird, dark-dropped-death smacked flat.
What holy child is this, it’s magic hour come round at last,
Who strides confidently toward Bethlehem.
Modern Soliloquies & Pastiches 