Praise beyond all conception of praise the things we cannot understand,
this thing that doesn’t want to be praised, this tragedy laid over tragedy to stir the watching,
misunderstanding crowd from their pulpits. From their bedsides. From their phones.
Sky the color of warning. Well not red but pink,
now salmon, it innovates faster than I have words
to shape into clouds on their way to their new life
in the midst of their old.
Every crumb of starlight
sails across the universe,
the journey of a million years
to end inside our eyes.
Image: “Desperado” by G.J. Gillespie. “Emergence” was written by Chris Kaiser for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Sometimes you’ll see one
far from any yard, maybe
on a bookshelf, Barnes
& Noble—third floor
of the mall—or somehow
whipping across town
with you in your car.
Set the warriors to sea in a ship stacked with shields, layers of swords, mountains of gold. Lay them out with their wife. With their child. Lay them out with their livestock, with the whole farm. The rain is not coming here. Not today. For today the gods welcome one of their own back home.