Incarnate Promise

How can it be

These fine protrusions

Nothing but strung bows

Of carmine and ivory

Can restore with a touch

Or extinguish

These simple, necessary

Spaces

Black holes that draw

Your Anahata close

With their gravity

These hands have gripped

The oiled handle

Of many umber dreams

Each fall of that pewter blade

A hard-earned lesson

These hands have cradled

The last pearlescent seed

Of many a memory

Too little to flourish

Too much to forgive

These hands have reached

Into the sable curtain

And come up empty

No gray ships visible

On the western horizon

What can these hands build?

A verdant ritual

A fiery sin

And then I must wonder

What can these hands destroy?