Assembling, while dissembling. How strange to write
Of a thing that does not exist. At least, not yet in the net of wistful
Circumstance. All those silver slivers of mirror still constellating
Along the oak floor of the bedroom, where with day the windows
Fill with hummingbirds & wild parrots & wisteria & bougainvillea
& at night I can hear even at this remove
The sound of the waves gathering up the distances along the beach.
I don’t know any more about faith, the kind of faith I think
Toni means when we talk about needing something, anything, even
God;—& it’s not like Leah’s faith, which is like breath to Leah, which is to Leah
The pervasive simplicity of human presence on this earth; that is, for Leah, life.
So, pouring the rice milk into Toni’s coffee, I don’t know what to say,
Imagining where my own faith went, my sense & belief in anything, that sense
Of hope & possibility—though maybe it’s still there somehow, like a biscuit
Hanging in front of a dog’s nose. More & more I think it must have
Something to do with memory, with our simple recovery & recuperation
Of what we’ve lost in the world. Isn’t that what poetry’s always about? Sketching
Those webs of music within language so we might tempt the past’s secrets
Out of their lairs, to sniff the air of the present once more? Lately, I think
If I could shuffle the decks of poetry just right, those stiff Tarot cards
Of my own lives (plural), then I could trace the reflections of things
That “have been,” to cast light on the mirrors of what will soon (perhaps) be.
So maybe that’s my faith, right there, in that. Then Toni says, Well, if I ever see
The face of memory, then I’ll know I’ve seen the face of God.