no memorials

Harvey S. Mozolak

a seed awakening
in a moist pot
does not remember
the field full of its flowers
and fruit from which it was plucked
and sacked
but only now the sun’s angle
to which it must lean
its sprouting head
unthinking of past seasons
but only surging hope dark buried
unseen but furrowed

song of the Spirit

Harvey S. Mozolak

when the dove
sings of heaven
nesting on earth
hear the holiness
angels understand
near in lullabies
as night-piercing gloriae
with a cup containing
garden-groaned tears
and a solid stone
setting for death
split open in descant for life

dove sounds

Harvey S. Mozolak

winged word called from silence
beaked breast blood from bound wood
song of the tree freeing from the deformation of all
noted as one
anew anew anew

sunrise circle

Harvey S. Mozolak

a wood in the middle
the street goes around
called a circle
the trees clustered tightly
are knot a thick lumbered dot
yet not because halfway through
I can see you walking about the loop
enlarged by the framing limbs
beckoning birds a family of rabbits
squirrels bees and wild flowers
nested by a ring of numbered houses

hOle in the hunt fOr…

Harvey S. MOzOlak

O lOOk O
sO sOOn
by the wOOd frame
Of the dOOr
a bOOn for my basket
nOw fOund an egg
rOund and red
as a drOp of blOOd
frOm an OOzing wOund
and O there tOO
sO blue
under the brOken tree
a giant drOp a tear O
what dOes the dyeing 
Of the Oval say?
the SOn in the bOOk
cracked On the gOOd Of nOOn
rose in the mOrning cOlOrs of jOy

morning following shabbat

Harvey S. Mozolak

it was not a day without God
but surely a godless time
forsaken of faith and future
it was not that there was no sun
but the light seemed not to matter
whether we walked the teeming tense streets
used the back alleys hidden
or hurried along the paths to Emmaus
and Bethany they were empty
without him who was our brother
no our new found Lord
was he simply a torn bookmark?
and we have gone on to read
another chapter learn of new characters
find drama and loves that pass like seasons
if it were only that the king was asleep
so his subjects crept quietly around his slumber
because he rested on his throne
instead we had lifted him lifeless
from the passion of the pitiful perch
placed him the robes of death
and delivered him into the throat of silence
among the cold stones and unmovable rocks
then we talked in the low tones of the fearful
will another rule the same our days and years?
yet we must keep this memory
the vast hollow void
for there is a kind of holiness
in all the unkindness and killing
the venomous stick left like a serpent’s broken fang
on the mounded flesh of a swollen earth
drained and dead itself
the Sabbath is trumpeted for rest
but fitful twisting and turning
all these mournful musings
and I have yet to leave my bed
Simon did I hear the women leave early
to do the dreadful duty in which none take delight?

pieta

Harvey S. Mozolak

taking down
by rope and linen leader
ladder laid against the limbs
the detached twigs
from the branches
the broken trunk pruned from the tree
limp leaves withered
in the oppressive noon heat
dried indecency
no wind no breath
only the commended spirit
silenced and closed by the wood
in a coffin of flesh
draped into arms of love
not yet adoration
but a simple pall
the fall of tears and waiting