Kyrie Eleison Poem by Kevin Fisher-paulson

In every page I seek his ghost.
I write in a dead man’s journal,
begging to be haunted, to be hunted
by the slipping moonlight.

The night they took the triplets away
I shoved this pen inside a drawer,
buried it under tarot cards,
self-help books and a chipped plaster

statue of Saint Jude, his head guillotined
by the incisors of a leonine Pekingese.
I blew out the last poem, its flame
smoking into mortgages and jails and middle years,

unshed tears.
Inside the church I still sing sweet Kyries,
but in falsetto.
I watched that dead man question his Wiccan ways,

but say in the end that his ashes belonged to oak and not holly.
As he spoke, I doubted my own doubt,
and shouted to him that all I wanted was his whisper
from the beyond.

That wraith has never come. I envy the man with blind faith,
but, for me, grace must be built, sweat by sweat.
Here is the miracle: everyone has a tragedy,
but some still show up.

My own new son throws at me mysteries:
each rainbow crafted out of beveled glass,
each soap bubble dancing out of the tub,
each sparrow flying impossibly over the wire,

is for him a wonder, and I wonder
when did I wander from that wisdom?
The other night he taught me he could kiss the moon
(I keep it hidden on my ankle) .

October 2nd, the Feast of Saint Leger, the Patron of the Blind