Creatio Ex Nihilo (Dozen)

Paul Soupiset
6 june 2014 : dozen, draft

XII.
The last shall be first.

I.
A Fredericksburg farm,
A graduation day,
A matryoshka factory,
A Seattle hospital room,
A faceless imaging lab,
A labor & delivery room,
A makeshift confession booth.
(My twin. Birds. Eggs. Beauty.)

II.
When we were still inside the womb
A shackled, fearful symmetry,
Like Esau’s odd fraternity with
Grasping Jacob’s epitaph
Our frames were hidden not from God,
Though frames without a photograph.

III.
We all like Russian nesting dolls
Or layers of an onion-skin
Are blind to who we once had been
And ever-bearing what befalls:
The brave Salutatorian,
the would-be mother, nursing wounds

IV.
And near the Whitworth’s Orchard loam
They watch and wait for ripening
These tiny buds that blossom unto
Pitted peach and nectarine

To walk again among the rows
Of shady trees; to pluck and pull and
Place them into cardboard boxes,
Bushel-halves of mid-July.

VII.
Brother hawk and sister robin,
Aviary, nesting, free
Calling out like Jean-Baptiste,

“Level then the path ahead,
Once-serpentine, now straighten, ye!”

VIII.
Nests are empty oftentimes,
Their baby birds have flown away
To test their own wet wings amidst
The burning noonday helium

These twigs and stems encircling
The orbed impression of an egg

IX.
(
Some have fallen prey or
fallen down or fallen short)

Ovoid ripened bird-like dreams,
Horse hairs
Woven prayers into the
Hollow saddle of her nest
Avoiding talk of stirrups
or bridles

(
Eggs and fruit and ovaries,
Nests and verdant gardens, these
Will in their own appointed time
Be players in your work sublime)

X.
The photograph, the ct scan,
The darkroom and the aperture
Belie the beauty deep within.
Exposure’s harsh, but harsher still
The liminal entablature
That presses down and presses in

XI.
Brother, Mother, Sister, Friend,
Blood-kin, In-Law, Married-In,
Sinner, Saint, Confessor; God

(Breathe, child. Say what you mean.)