Limitations

The petals fold
(you do not know it yet,
but they are pink)
around a secret sorrow.
They are cloaked,
all of them,
in green, tough, tender,
creased green,
the cowl a blossom wears
before it is born.
Where do the crimped,
lace-veined membranes
find courage to taste
wind, rain, sun,
to spill to the last
their touchless
essence.

 * * *

You learn, in life
to live with the ringing
in your ears--the thing inside
that makes perfect silence
impossible. Think on it too much, and
you'll go mad.
Put on a bit of music,
maybe the TV, and you won't
notice, the tremolo against
your brain, the soprano static
of your humanity.
You want the silence . . . no,
you want the space
the silence makes,
as if then you might rediscover
your soul.

 * * *

Kneeling in sunshine,
forehead to carpet,
at prayer you picture
your back folded out
like wings with rib-cage veins,
like storybook flaps.
Your heart, unobstructed, blinks
under the gaze of heaven.