Universal Rhythm
There on the table, the nightly dissection
Hattusa gathers her wits, the dusty hills of Capernaeum.
When stars wheel, the archer fires his arrow
across the sky piercing Ursa’s thigh,
an artifact, an artifice, a brazier, the wafting
smoke, the smoldering cinders in their rest state.
The chill winds of eternity brace sweatered breasts
penetrating deeply, lungs, spleens, livers,
in their twisted array, forward to the exhumation
the nakedness of diagnosis, the black night apotheosis;
for now a steaming cup filled with herbal tea,
a meditative state, a musty smelling book;
hidden in a nook, curled comfortably,
shawl shouldered, rocking gently back and forth
to some universal rhythm.
Bookmarked, dog-eared, yellowed page
singed with a former owner’s insights
the scrawl of another’s mad night
in a purgatory of words.
There are no library books of fate,
no due dates on importunity.
