The Drowning Moment
is when he of the Mount of Olives
whom you believe keeps the night watch
catches you by surprise with a wash over your spirit
like Baptism, when he suddenly exists "de facto"
as you are walking, just as you always do, on
blood-red carpet toward a priest who will place
in the palm of your hand bread for which
you are the supplicant, when words you recited
by rote only moments ago become alive
in bas-relief as solid as sentences carved in stone,
and the song you were humming softly
because you have always loved the melody
resurrects a white-robed schoolgirl
in a long ago choir stall. Those words,
the familiar music, tugging at your heart,
"O saving Victim, opening wide the gates of heav'n
to man below," assail you with such a sense
of presence, that you are like the angelic child
in front of you who has fallen fast asleep,
certain of the safety of his mother's arms: Body
to body, warmth to warmth -- trustful of the lanyard.
Then, at home in Sunday calm, the chameleon sky
is an uncomplicated azure, no cloud in sight,
(though marshmallow cumulus delivers
its own delight.) Beyond a lakeside screened-in
porch, three ducklings navigate their outpost,
becoming more and more adventurous,
their every paddle sending a V for Victory,
trailing in their wake toward the Watcher in the Rye,
while a platoon of turtles periscope the surface
with an inquisitive why? And nothing, but
nothing, interrupts the anhinga, drying his wings,
outspread to the sky like Jesus in anguish
on the cross in these moments so
sublime, you gladly, but gladly, would
go under for the third time.
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