mouseheart

mostly for me, and also for my mother

dear mouseheart trembling
in My hand
stitched in your grey silk pocket-skin
huddled in it
covering your eyes--

dear oyster, curled
around your grief grit
hold and worry it
into a polished world
walled up: I know you nearly,
dear, your
hidden liquid quiver
gray and clear

dear mouseheart: stand
and speak: in lion's roar
or timid squeak
Truth remains sure--

I give it to you: fire
in your core--
little trillbeat you are
(I say it -- I)
You are transformed

(perhaps the three sons felt every flame
bite at their cells
felt every intolerable hungry claim
on their frail dust-
and they--
I standing there--
remained):

I name you, dear one
salamander heart:
burn, and endure

and in the fire find yourself,
dear self, reordered
not dissolved, but more
who I say you are--

find in the shatter
space
to speak My name

go, little heart--
grow, little tree--
when streams are deep sunk
and dry dirt chokes your thirsty feet

dear heart, burn
as the three:
of, beside, for, speaking
Me

this, dear heart,
unbearable as flame
I gift you:

your name now
wrapped up in splendor,
in My Name