I have been considering the lilies of the field,
how they neither toil nor spin.

I have been picking street glass
out of my feet.

I am glad for walking but envious of roots.
I get the Lord’s logic but not his meaning,

which is why he teaches me to consider
the natural beauty of dumb objects,

how my soul is connect to them.
My heels are bleeding as much from my considering

as from the glass.
I want to know what Julian was doing

in the interim between her “showings,”
how she toiled and spun with contemplation,

following the rules of knowing
that God’s essential being partakes in us

but we not in him.
I am consoled by my geranium

which sits in glory beside my bed.
Its leaves are the ears

of the dead listening to my complaints
with perfect patience, defining

existence by default:
You are only yourself in another world.

When I imagine its growth as laughter
I am offended, and hate the dead,

although I do anyway.
When I imagine its growth as grief

I grow too, and love the dead,
although I do anyway.

When I don’t imagine its growth at all
I measure its stalks in millimeters

and wash its leaves, and fertilize its soil,
and stare into its stamen and pistil

with curious eyes, and take the dead for granted,
although I do anyway.

It sits beside my bed in a ray of sun
emitting a pungent smell around the sill.

It neither speaks or sings,
but blooms with flowers

which I take to be tragic answers.