Bill Turley

Bill says this poem is about the muse. Indeed it is, and much more . . .

LETTER TO THE MUSE

After traveling this far from home, I ask,
Do you treat all exiles the same?
I strain so much to make you understand,
That I lose myself before first paragraphs.
In my landscapes, I confess, I was reaching for a silence.
I never knew this until I began to trust your wisdom.

I am not on an equal basis with you,
The voice we parented is still a stranger.
In hindsight, taking cues from old photographs
I lost our beginnings.
You lead me so close to the heart of things
Where the light is blinding,
And I realize I am being led
Regardless of my principles.

Many of these writings are born
trying to steal a dream from half-sleep.
Some remain in this room
Where I would like to sleep,
But there is always some beginning
Which lingers even when lines are spinning home.

            ---Bill Turley

Bill said the poem below was written upon the occasion of reading recent discoveries about the life of Jesus and potential archeological records of him and his family. It is as yet untitled, so I put a temporary title on it.

THEY SAY . . .

They say you had a family
At least a brother, maybe a sister.
Baptized by John in waters that called to the
Breath in you, making your back lean strong against
The Roman law of the land,
And still you refuse to be the adversary
Offering them your sinuous branch.
Covering your wounds wrapped in cloth of your knowing,
Taking the arrow from the stifling wind, bending it,
Fashioning it to a new covenant.
And Mary, who could doubt her countenance:
By far the strongest of the twelve.
She held the broken dove in her hand
When the blanket of their grief muffled
The sound of their horizon, when there was nothing left
But to take the yoke of your body into the streets to every heart.

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