Darren C. Demaree is living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children. He is the author of “As We Refer to Our Bodies” (September 29, 2013) and “Not For Art Nor Prayer” (2014), both forthcoming from 8th House Publishing. He is the recipient of two Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net nomination.
*****
EMILY AS THE SANCTUARY HURTS THE BLOSSOM
Whimpers come with closed peace, tight peace that crowd the green trees, circle to choke off the bloom. Astonished with the vibration, the continued rattle that fashions angry music at night when we most want to allow the wind to move us freely. We protect love. We shield love from all violence. Emily and I, sometimes lose sight of the blossom.
***
WE ARE
ARROWS #217
Magic and realism,
we are the movement
between the two, we
are the screams that
echo back and forth
like those are our only
two mountains.
We have
found the drugs that
make that untrue, but
they are dangerous.
We have lost
whole generations to
the wager that there
might be a third
mountain, a man of a
mountain, but that
was before the good
drugs could take us
past that thought.
We have a
third mountain; we
have made it piling
animals on top of
experiments on top of
numbers that
resemble the purest of
stardust.
We are
competitive in our
naming of this
structure.
We hesitate to
stand on top of it, but
our embrace of the
slow rising proof of its
strength has given our
arms a reason to
believe in the
possibility of damn
near any formula.
We should
close our arms around
this pinnacle.
We should not
forget the magic or
the realism, but the
names we have given
those places were too
apt to replace them
now.***
WE ARE
ARROWS #218
We are with the rain
first. We are
baptized of this world
before we are ever
given a chance to
resemble a single
grain of dirt.
After the
clouds, we only
resemble the dirt.
We should
remember how much
we owe to the sky.
We should
know how much we
owe the dirt.
It gave us a
landing.
It gave us a
second truth.
It is our
moveable acceptance.