sky hammer

I took my sky hammer &
pounded out a few choice
clouds, cirrus and I don’t know, nimbus
as in a god on earth
moving in space as a great auroral mist
a god who beholds the sparrows 
washing in the dusty gravel
of frankford avenue
giving me cause to rant or
giving me means to roll
ride with me in the shadowy afterworld
beyond the spider of a doubt
along a sidewalk littered w/ leaves
don’t be plain, said the cloud, find
the ornament that please you best
or elsewise, sugared in stars
go on and rail in a useless manner
against the inevitable dawntime
people of the dawn
come up drumming 
and beat on a pillow even
if a drum is not available
happy fortune, fortune has come round for you again
in this pocket world of a minor horned god 
I balanced my lunch 
in the arms of my ancestors
thomcord grapes and weeping cherries
they were my arms
lackadasic in the sky-sky-sky
holding their sky hammer
as if it were the baby buddha
and I thought, if there was a world beyond...
I could become one of those assholes 
who gets their sugar from fruit
and regard the one who points out my faults 
as a revealer of treasures
and regard the one who points out my faults 
as a revealer of treasures

Copyright © 2022 by Julian Talamantez Brolaski. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 9, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day Podcast 

  

“Thích Nhất Hạnh says, when washing the dishes, do it as carefully as if you were washing the baby Buddha. The line ‘as a great auroral mist’ is from my teacher, Paramahansa Yogananda. Another inspiration was from the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits drum. During one practice, a singer didn’t have a hand drum, so they started beating on a pillow. That touched me, how we work with the tools we have at hand. One of these is imagination—the idea of a hammer that could shape clouds, and then the cloud speaks. The poem takes on its own intelligence.”
—Julian Talamantez Brolaski