MEN'S RETREAT

MEN'S RETREAT

March 1995

This morning pockets of men play Rook

and 42.

I drink coffee

watch the faces, eyes

careful hands

select just the right card

or domino

out of a closed posture down it

onto the table between them.

Last night

we came out

to confess our

addiction

to touch, to embrace

to be healed by other men

to peel back the husk

to a common core

see we're not alone.

Last night a game.

This morning I do not

play

am not dealt-in.

I retreat

beyond the fort

to the drainage ditch.

Here cedars

stand around me

the geese pass

overhead;

I hear them

above the clouds their voices

clear.

All the voices

are clear: wind

bird, sway of grass

click of limb, fall of twig;

I trust them

trust what they say.

The ditch stretches

dirty arms full

of morning sky

every branch

a Moses-staff

too stiff to point a finger back at

me.

These limbs interweave

roots interlock

dig deep

sucking life

from the soil.

One root, one loops up

a grandfather's bony knee

of live wood

a place to sit

as I wait for the waters

to part

to open a path

to the Promised Land for all of us

to drop our cards

our dominoes and step arm-in-arm

across.