Ozahowski, Davey

English

Dartmouth Digital Commons (Dartmouth College)

When the Baker’s Bread Breaks By Davey Ozahowski  The before-dawn baker’s fingers sprinkle flour But the ever-invisible, focused fingers of the sky,  They, they sprinkle this: delightful drizzles and downpours, swirling squalls, bounding  Blizzards, steady bands of weightless snow and pinging sleet. It falls, it falls on Northern sea crests, rust reflected raw mouthed canyons, yawning stiff-necked glaciers,  Forests of old and forests of new; and the elements charge  Upon bashful springs and  Sleepy rivers that stretch and bend and soothe their way into stay-at-home lobster bays;  And upon thirsty, deprived deserts, tide torn  Lighthouses, freckled lichen, lions’ manes, dragonfly’s eyes,  On the long, pointed hands of a church steeple’s clock, on  Love letters and suspension bridges. On Messages and sailboats in bottles, child’s gung-ho cheeks,  Apollo’s temple  In ruins, a pharaoh’s  Distant bloodline, and through a welcoming, Once upon a time rainbow.  Rise yeast, rise west, rise north, rise south And come out of the daybreak oven,  Bread, gooey and chewy, seeds and nuts, bread,  The bread to break.  Outside, beyond windows, sun ravishing shrines and ledges, pouring over frosted fields As mid-morning loons, chickadees, ravens, eagles, doves, robins, warblers, jays  Sound and sing as the great heron’s wings  Clap and flap over marshy swamps where  Bullfrogs and peepers and choirs and schools of fish let my  Judgements, insecurities, envies, Heart breaker, broken hearted, tightrope stretched  Emotions, boiled  Blooded burdens, back shelved  Suppressions, gravitate and fall to the underlayers of the swamp Beneath the clay.   Read and rest in the afternoon winter hour, good baker, to slow the Earth’s orbit––put it on pace with the sea turtle  After she lays her eggs in the soft, silky, sunset sand. Then, on Twilight’s digestion of alpenglow, might we be reminded to set extra plates and say extra Prayers and light extra  Candles for the laughter, the real and imagined kisses, the good  Deeds, the chores, the right-timed flashing, laughing smiles; the eyes sincere glow that welcome Eternal drifts and musings. And I, I ran through the woods, skied  Through the pasture, and up I went toward the temple in the sky, soul symmetry, gifts given,  Compassion offered,  Revolutionary righteousness, fortitude family  Friendships, frugal in  Mind and energy and matter, bowed head  Humility, gracious on the toes gratitude, and awed at the day’s  Mercy that shines on the tops of peaks I’ve climbed, and ran, and skied,  And so,  And so a bit of my spirit is set in the stones of Vermont and New Hampshire Mountains Colorado–Wyoming–Utah–Montana Mountains,  California Mountains, Oregon Mountains, Washington  Mountains, Alaskan Mountains, Canadian Mountains, Swiss and French and  Austrian and Italian Alps, English Hills and Blue  Hills, all to where the air is as sweet and as beautiful As the barn mouse who sleeps and winks and sniffs its nestling nose in the hay loft as beams of  Light sneak and strike                  Through the valleys between the siding of the barn.   Beneath the stars, to the beauty of bread and its bakers and breakers. To mothers and fathers…masons and Gardeners…directors and apple pickers and  Ball players …volunteers and nurses…Shamans and  Soothsayers…heavy equipment operators and  Optometrists…fire fighters and factory workers and forest rangers… Teachers and preachers and beekeepers… Lawyers and librarians…captains and pilots and principals… Printmakers and publishers… Presidents and Prime Ministers and Artists and Scientists and all who  Toil and all who sweat and all who think and all who do to  Make beauty and give beauty and do beauty and  Long for beauty and love,  Love endless, infinite, tender, unconditional, compassionate, innocent, remarkable, new  Beginning love, old, dusty love, and  Truth and  Myth and philosophy and economy and bliss and hungry and poor and  Short and tall and wide and narrow, and eyes of all colors and hearts of all sizes, Gather beneath the stirring stars and courageous cosmos constellations and galaxies of home  To praise and sing to Angels, To Abraham, Mary, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Hindu  Gods and Goddesses, Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, African  Gods and Goddesses, Native American Gods and Goddesses,  Incan Gods and Goddesses, Mayan  Gods and Goddesses, Greek Gods and Goddesses, Roman Gods and Goddess, Norse Gods and Goddesses, unmentioned Gods and Goddesses,  Forgotten Gods and Goddesses and the   Gods and Goddesses who are waiting, whose hearts are ready  To beat through our hearts like thunder and into all that breathes and swims and flies and is ever And forever in harmony and care from the  Benevolent, Beautiful, Great, Grand, Triumphant, Almighty Spirit  That shines the silvery new moon and sends it splashing and spinning  Around the sun in this, this  Eternal cycle we call Life.  Let the baker sleep So the sprinkle can begin anew.               

When the Baker’s Bread Breaks

https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1117&amp;context=clamantis

When the Baker’s Bread Breaks

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