OFFERINGS

what you offer us --
a soap bubble
a glass thread --
what you place
in open hands --
one branch
of one snow fleck
a sliver
of smoke

and if and if
the offering bursts
breaks
melts
if the smoke
is swallowed in the night

we lift
the barricades
we take the edges
of our transience
we bury the ashes
of our wording
and sift
the silences

Copyright © 1985 Joy Kogawa.  All rights reserved.