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To my old apartment:

Dear, blessèd stairwell, blessèd hallway down

to my apartment, wreathed in cold cement,

sweet hallway of delicious detriment,

warm whirlpool where I may mindlessly drown;

and end the day’s adventure destitute,

so that my dreams may quick and quiet be,

and wrap myself in blurred banality,

for naught but oblivion, resolute.

I miss you. Now I have more to live for:

a kitchen to prepare my dinner in,

a cat to feed food from a cat food tin—

tho how I miss, betimes, your blissful bore.

Your cold, cemented shoebox gave me earth

to cover up the coffin of my dearth.

~~~

1 Nephi 22: 8-9

No accident it was to see the day

when many generations spanned the tide

that was the promise made so far away,

so long ago, that wise Isaiah spied:

a wonder and a work so marvelous

such that no eye could know it or have guessed—

the kind that makes a hard heart tremulous,

and eases hearts that are already stressed.

As centuries went forth from Nazareth,

so from Palmyra too returns the Word,

and centuries again reverse the death

of promises forgotten, now re-heard.

Be not surprised when first is re-apprised

by last, by divers centuries disguised.