I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.
–The Tempest, Act Five, scene 1
What if, after each poem, each day,
your prayer became: Take this,
my magic wand I wield and lean on,
drown my book of spells, ambitions,
arguments. So that, tomorrow,
if tomorrow comes, I’ll know myself
helpless, dependent, and flawed
the way this turquoise stone is flawed,
with bits of iron, setting off blue
with islands of deeper green.
And it will be enough to dwell in mercy—
a cat curled, asleep on a lap,
or like winter roots content to know
they are not dead, just dormant.
