TIMOTHY TARKELLY

CLF free world member, living in KS

A task is only as dull as its suitor,

and if you listen, you can hear your work

calling you, the joys of occupation

waiting to unveil their rewards: a chance to pray,

name your talents, a chance to sing.

Find rhythm in the feathers

scraping their wetted tips against

darkening sheets, open skins

soon to hold some ancient secret,

hallowed verse, hardened holy rule,

or in the marriage of wool and work,

the blood of pressed flowers fueling

the swimming needle, binding spun black

oceans, adding stones to heavy oaths,

to tonsured ethic,

or in the fields, the stench

of soil as its churned for new life,

rising to meet the spade

gripped in purposeful hands, pendulized

by the bulged and sweaty breaths of repetition,

and in the rise and fall of duty,

the long-hewn, calmative voice

of a thousand hopes burning at once,

smoldering inside righteous chests,

every candle’s daring lash at cobbled darkness.

Call back to it, say that you’re coming,

muscle and timbre, there is no other

that can wear your name,

sing these songs, mold the earth

quite like you.