Jonathan Goodman
Beloved
The beloved is a white bell
whose sound is linked
to the trees bending gentlyover rivers that begin
where the great oceans end;
no sound escaped the harshland and climate where
prayers come and go
with such astonishing swiftnessthe eye begins to tire
of the mountains hiding
their ill-preparedness with song.How far away, then,
the bit of beauty
that I run towards,more than halfway
entangled with the cry
of a woman barely sleeping:see how her breath
rises and falls
in imitation of the skies;she stand alone, at the end
of a map she herself
has devised, in the hopethat someone else might
refuse to grieve. The river
shouts out, “No truthanywhere,” but somewhere else,
in a place unmarked,
lacking boundaries or words,pale birds echo
her unassailable worth,
their speechless twitteringthe pure commentary
of a heart no longer
in conflict with itself.