ascension

Even the light that flows from your hands falls,

bends around a heavy star,

gets trapped making a cavern warm, gutters and

goes out.

But you rise, eternal up-and-gone of human prayer,

you who promise

us a flesh like yours, making light look thick and slow.

For now we have

a body's diurnal dawn and rest, rhythmic like

the rise and fall

of hammer on a nail's head, making our red life

flow like yours.

*Gregory Fruehwirth