Two Poems by Dan Beachy-Quick

can’t put your hands around what isn’t there
but can you put your mind around it
can’t open the door that isn’t a door
but can you walk through it and come out
the same you you were before nothing is
the living mirror of God where love
and soul embrace a window open
never not open never not closed
where witness is trespass prayer is want

*

I had wanted a quiet testament
and I had wanted, among other things,
a song   a pure empty shape like a child
would draw when asked to draw the shape called home
a square with no roof but the sky and sky
thinks in clouds and when the clouds go clear
that light that falls down but is not falling
on things   not paradise   it won’t cohere
not the crystal acorn   not the gold thread
not amen   what fills also forms the eye

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From Variations on Dawn and Dusk. Used with the permission of the publisher, Omnidawn. Copyright © 2019 by Dan Beachy-Quick.