They knew how to pull the sun to the horizon
or fix a lunar that might do for days
of dead reckoning when the sky closed up.
In their wooden boats of spirit, the saints
saw little of God. Mostly the weather
of their affections, hunger for a name,
a better meal, some generous mouth to kiss,
and none of it could be quelled. It was not
a desolation. I think the best
of hearts can trust only upon occasion,
as banks of fog give way to sun, moon, stars,
in the ocean of things as they obscurely are.
Richard Greene won the 2010 Governor General’s Award for Poetry. His latest collection is Dante’s House.
