Teleology

Waterloo, ON, Canada, 2008.

Teleology
 
The bus shudders onto
the shoulder of the road, rain-shivered,
lamplight sprawling
its accidental constellations
upon an asphalt sky.
 
I step forth, foreshadowed by
stars shifting through the street
and wish it were the map of fate
now fallen underfoot
that the random steps of the passerby
might flicker as phosphores on God's eye
were it this pavement
blinking with
the afterimage of rain.
 
Leaden-lidded skies
shutter heaven's gaze
lullaby the rain
to souls unsleeping, ill at ease,
on walks awash in penitence
for hearts too harshly driven
who know these streets in negative
(eyes fix an inverse heaven).
 
Stammer-stuttering, eavestroughs tumbling
over the guttering liquid light
adrift on the night like a vertigo dream
or a teenager stumbling through the fallacies of pain
to the slosh of sneakers to the slap of denim hems
and the rill of starshine artificed below the lamps
down reeling drunken to the black hole of the drain
if I cannot scry tomorrow, still I will listen
to the rain
 
that
 
rattles down the rooftops
or prattling off the pane
as fluid of expression
as the voice of man
and yet as voluble
by dimming blue of day
though visible as Providence
or lips to blind man's prayer.