We have had a difficult swim through all that:
there were days when your hair was greasy,
the aureole absent, but the absence revealing
once presence, the summer will of God.

There were days when my voice was hollow,
arched with hesitance, hour of iridescence
alighting in an ash-washed room: dry bones
indicating since past gestures of grace.

Measure your time with split-pea soup
and eat a peach while you’re at it, but
what does that leave behind? After this
our exile, after this our prayerless day

show us into the blessed fruit of presence,
the bread of the womb, the visible hand,
not aura but annunciation, that which is
plain, spoken, announced.