If the Time Is Upon Us / If there Be No Angels…

and the rest is rust and stardust.

—Vladimir Nabokov

May we remember

a gallop

like the run of the antelope

breaking.

Blind justice birthed between bruised

thighs, under thunder-burned suns.

No midnight fugues or dawn airs now,

just battalions beside the metal’s monotones.

Crows and skies could pray,

but justice is a cartoon song’s mix.

Doors kicked into buzz saws’ eyes,

deafen our windows to silence.

Once lands fell like un-rung bells

once killers ruled like kings.

Still, morning shrills of waiting

larks, still mute cries of the un-winged.

—Tell me was there not one hymn

sung, was once-upon not born

blind between our raised arms?

When souls stared at fires

and hid in fractured colors, was there not

one lullaby, one rustle of a greening branch?

Tell me the reign of noise ceased. Tell me

a hum of breeze came near, or was yes,

on our lost way. Tell me a loose gowned melody rose

wrapped in the past’s weave.

Tell me the after and the before are not

the same, holding vigil, holding my frozen hand,

tell me you’ve not lost your mind or that gazelles

recall lungs that swelled their sanity’s breath.

If the time is upon us… may we at least pretend to know

. . . let evening come. . .

While crows and skies and dreams bow

. . . before they invent prayer. . .