How to be: holy

How to be: holy

When your throat is full of lint

Or whatever it is that falls off of words

In the heat of a moment –

All that your conversation wears is

Nothing compared to an inadvertent glance.

Don’t say mercy, only

Become a vase, glazed and full-figured,

Arrange in it the mums, freesia, stock,

Bearded Iris; now deliver this

To yourself, to others: is it possible to

Quiet your need to be seen and heard,

By yielding, in softness, with your eyes?

Give up your ears for a short while –

(This is an action that you become, are not decorated by)

Make out of your gesturing a gentle candor, and of posture –

An invitation to be heard: how to be holy.