For a Friend Going to War

Each tile shudders
In rhythm

Whenever I stop speaking
I hear him—

The carpenter
Hammering on the roof

Today he beats the meter into slate

Driving hillocks
Of sound into valleys
Into a thin, hard skin of sound

He pauses, and the poem
He labors—in becoming
Cries out, “Who am I?
What can I count as mine?”

The first time
My mother
Let me
Out of eye’s grip
I was that cry
Released

Now it moves over the rooftops
In a surging field

Swirling farther and farther
Towards the hollow
Of the first ear

My mother said
This is the ear
Of the carpenter

She said he is building
A house for God

Now I can hear
How he worships

Driving the nail
Into the empty slot