A scientist observed several ants discarding one of their own dead. "How do they know?" he asked himself, and began mixing concoctions until he could fake an ant's death. He placed a smelly substance that marked out death on the back of an ant and put her inside the colony. Immediately drone soldier ants came and carried her off.

O come,
Between Heaven and Hell,
Earth, formless and void.
O come 
Between God’s breath and the serpent’s deception,
a couple sins.

If a thousand years is like a day, then I haven’t been gone that long. Keep your candles burning bright, and keep on singing that old salvation song, because I’m coming, I’m coming to take you home.

The desert of unprophetic years turns on a moment. It catches stars and pulls them in close like a surgeon caring for a dying patient. An angel descends looking for a certain teenage girl named Mary. When he locates her, she is startled by his appearance and his announcement. The nature of the news invites her to question…

Up a bent back of stairs, I climb these great quasimodo heights. Year after year, layer upon layer, floors on floors have slowly formed a breed of long-necked giants.

It’s heavy; I don’t know if I can bear it; the whips are driving into my back; my feet are sore; beneath me the riveting rocks press in; my eyes sting from the sweat; I am hot; I am cold. “Why don’t you save yourself?” jeers someone close to me from the lynch mob that has surrounded me. Father even now forgive them.

Who started looking up anyhow? If gods are to be found, wouldn’t they be closer in? Sustenance makes leveled sense. Survival is intimate with what the winds bring in or what they keep away. And who moves these winds? Who strings up the clouds and thickens their skins to hold in the sun’s greed? Is the sky’s vastness reason for our inferiority?

don't be afraid. / this must be amazing grace, / electricity in the air, / a galvanic presence from beyond, / brought down and tangled up / in chalcedon blessing; / son of God, son of man.

The streets swallowed in the dark and carried a load of weariness. The hour was late. A warm breeze shuffled lazily around the walls of Jerusalem and through its dusty summer houses. Why was this night different from any other?

It began in the orange grove. They were too young to realize that their curiosity had blind-alley eyes. The earth tone pickup truck melted into the turns and weaves of squatty trees that dripped its fruit. Michael’s adolescent senses naturally hunted for a solace space to take his girl. He was a hound sniffing out the chase.

(Damn you) Adam. You discovered emptiness in a place of plenty, where God raced you to the water’s edge to make you his watershed. But you preferred baptism to sweet water, wilderness to milk and honey.

“Son,” a voice says. A shadowy figure rustles the darkness in the damp corner and steps forward. Nearby is the lifeless body of Jesus. A few days ago his body was plucked off its crucified perch and given over to Joseph and put into an empty crypt, under a sky swirling with angels. Now this earthen cavity is swollen with two godheads inside. 

What if the earth used up its shadows? Gone would be these empty selves that follow us in ones, twos, and threes. Buildings could stand straight up with no morning and afternoon penitence.

Ansul, Mari, and Abe. Three dueling friends who knew well what defined them as different. Before the annals of history, they lived alone, not used up nor found useless. They nourished each other in most natural ways. Since Mari had plenty of water to spare, he shared it with Abe and in turn, he would receive warmth from his older, wiser brother.

Tsunami. A word half a world away. A discussion point at the local dive. “Did you hear the latest?” A travesty my googlized eyes blur. Tsunami.