The Green Tricycle: Issue #2: Fire: Robert James Berry

Issue 2:
Fire
Robert James Berry

Father Zosimov Confesses

Most of winter
The meanness of snow
tangles in your soul.

The rancour of brambles,
not resurrection,
takes root in my skull.

Decomposing in the black earth of the bone yard behind,
The saints can't save such fat souls as us.

Eternity, deaf to our clamour of bells,
To all those bland good byes cut into the
Monumental cradles of the dead,

Is stubborn, abstinent as this wind.

For such a cruel season,
I want fire, and the loud yowl of god,

Not my evening candle
Guttering in its own tawdry sorrow,
An idiot stump of light.

Surround me with miracle.
I don't want this snow!

~Robert James Berry

Robert has lived all over the world, and currently is teaching at the Universiti Putra Malaysia. He is widely published. Email.