for the world, after disaster

god speaks in a soft voice

as the world turns technicolor dawn.

it’s so easy to love.

you’d be surprised.

so i walked through the city

as it was falling apart. so i watched

those intricate and quiet lives burn

like buildings. tired of being

too big for their bodies.

and the windows.

wide open. catching the storm.

so i closed my eyes against the wind

of the end. listened to the whisper

in my ear.

aren’t we so beautiful?

we are.

we are.

doesn’t everything and everyone

matter so much?

so much. like the sun.

like a funeral pyre.

burning

and burning. and saying:

we will move on from this.

we have loved. and we will love.

so i opened my eyes to a world in love.

with each other, the music,

the birds. enough to swell with it.

enough to dance.

and i sat in silence and i understood.

and i put on the music and i knew.

i saw it, the turning, the answers

hidden everywhere, singing

beneath my skin, turning

like the ever-dancing world, waiting

for me to give it the cue. the signal,

the lighthouse standing in the middle

of terribleness, saying the goodness

is the solution and i’m here, i’m waiting

for it, so send it over in whatever form it takes.

i locked eyes with the night.

warm gentle shimmering beast.

and it no longer mattered who made it

with their ambiguous and lonely hands

god or daughter or ocean:

it no longer mattered who wrote the story

with that soft sculpting voice of theirs

like every tragedy

was written in the tune of hope.

what matters: i’m here. you’re here.

and the world is becoming tender.

not as a result but

as a journey, one soft foot

planted in front of the other.

of course in the morningtime

everything shines a little brighter

but we can get away with a little bright-eyed awe

anytime we please. the more the better.

the secrets are in the swimming pool water.

the keys are in the floorboards

humming the song of goodness

like they were born knowing it.

as if they were found with it

scrawled on their palms like a name.

it’s true. the ghosts of love haunt everything.

they’re beautiful and terrible and true.

they’re calling your name

and mine too, and soon they’ll know it

by heart, the rhythm of this lawless earth

and all of its glistening people.

don’t ask what happened to us

to make us this way. don’t ask

what dark road we are walking down.

just ask for another day.

another chance to hold the rain

in your holy hands.

another chance to mend this.

ask for the truth, and also

the sorrow. ask for the love,

warm and shining on our shoulders

like summer rain.

it’s strange, these things we receive,

the way it all works together.

all this goodness painted blue.

all the terrible things a vision in their red dresses.

it’s an oxymoron, loving everything

here and now, being so tender

to this horrible world.

so of course

it is all i am. of course it is all i have.