Manifesto

The morning calls,
the star, smack dab in my face.
Yellow and wide,
it drips across the sky
like my deepest wound
or a broken yolk
on a pink china plate.
I break my dark fast from joy
today.

Today
I have no mind for philosophy
for dasein or ontology,
interstitial sentences,
prohibitory fences
set up against the sun.
I’d rather play with angels
AWOL from their allotted choirs.
They show me
squirrels on the backyard electric wires,
their rodent toes embracing the hum,
outrunning death.
Today.
They show me
the front-yard oak trees,
fast toward
and slow from
acorns.
They show me
the counterclockwise
morning glory turning
in quarter circles
toward the sun.
One day,
its bloom will bond
with August light
releasing all the hoarded
hopes of its assent
in one audacious boom of blue.

But today,
I live at the center of this same sun:
there is nothing I can do to make God love me more;
there is nothing I can do to make God love me less.

-Kitty Yanson