Membrance (Earth)

to Isaac, holding a scroll which reads:
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth

Diligent apprentice of Reality, you rise
tree by tree, exercise by exercise,
not to master but to give
homage to earth with earthen hands:
entering while remaining still, becoming home.

Never fastest of your child friends,
your feet grew weighty even then.
Patient in your roots, you suffered
loneliness, estranged from those who spoke
as kites with ease and air.

To jettison oneself, you teach us,
is not humility. Instead, to reach
deeper than hurt into the firmament

You delved until your fingers bled
iron, deeper than justice into mercy.
Perhaps the ground forgets. We wish
our failings, being hidden, were undone.

It is not so. And yet (and yet!)
our machinations rust in wildflower patches,
and daily you greet my merest
tries with resolute kindness, firm yielding,
even forgiveness. I only ask

to dwell here still a space.
You, firstborn child, made our striving
into an actual place. I awake,
and I am still with you

beginning to fathom how the sacred
places do not belong to us,
even our blood in the ground.

There is a garden in you.
The wandering elements drift and float
over a low wall, resting beside
you, solid soil of other earths.

The black wolf rolls and bares
his famished belly to your hand.

Nurture verdure. Go and number beasts
with mythic accuracy: a thousand and one,

ten-thousand, vermillion. Mingle the fact
with the truth. Make us home.