BardBliss: Margaret Gibson

Our Crab Apple.

Today's poem is by Margaret Gibson, one of my favorite living poets, from her collection Earth Elegy. I especially love how she combines what some would see as traditional Christian theology with the more pagan aspects.

PRAYER ASCENDING
PRAYER DESCENDING

God, let me be a sensual
hush, wind
that ripples the olive
leaves, nests
in the lush frangipani, its blossoms
scattered, crushed beneath my sandals,

lifting into flowerwine and gravid scent --

for whatever I know of source
and ascent,
blossoming forth,
lies rooted in the backyard plum tree
I climbed one summer night,
no more than eight,
and no one, least
I, knew what I climbed down from,

ripe with secrets
I want to have a word for now --

as if night sky and years of light
could be so
easily swallowed,

eaten, owned --

God, like a plum.

Or, if not hushed, than taut and thrummed,
as, lightly at mass, el domingo pasado,
los guitarras. Listening,

I took the host,
the solar disk
into my mouth,
I swallowed the sun --
this is my body,

and beneath what Spanish I knew,
the tree of blood inside me
shimmered down to the oldest prayer,
Maya Quiche --
Pardon my sins, God Earth,
I am becoming, for a moment,
Your breath, and also your body.