God of love, you
are an ancient grief;
a slab of meat hanging in a butcher’s stall;
the brass pot
sunk in the heart of the Slav woman
the poet Rilke met.
My undying God of love,
nails in the palms can’t kill you;
you are
essence of fragile innocence
stripping in daylight;
yellow-green wind
rising in the leaves of
a young elm
in March.