...where moss redeems the stone...

ANOTHER VIEW

2011-12-14T21:38:00.000+02:00

You looked at you, turned to your bags

and said, “We’re going home.” It’s not a future

that we should somehow turn back to our history.

It’s a flair, an army biscuit he had been given

in the darkness: silent, vanished by the view

of a man we should punish.

It’s a world the others

never forget, because there’s another view

that the others never saw. A future we have to accept.

And there’s another view

that the dusk is invisible.

(December 13, 2011)

US

2011-11-23T18:35:00.001+02:00

She remained in Joe’s Lunch Room

drinking coffee with love. Shepherds began

driving their flocks in the hope that turning inward

behind the walls of the moment,

when it seems most frightening, would bring us

the last handfuls of the harvest. I don’t understand how

I’m going to face fear with love. I don’t understand

how I’m going to balance the world. Do I wait

‘til someone says my name? Do you I let you drag me down

in the revolution while editing this vampire movie?

I went over to face the fear with a passing farmer,

and saw her and everyone as they stood silently

around the grave, thinking of the wet earth.

I’d rather fall myself than chase you

around the field, or let you drag me down

in the hope it gives us, that the world might offer us

a pipe. I’ve forgotten everything about you,

I’ve forgotten the fields all stretched out. I’ve forgotten

the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.

(November 19, 2011)

EMPTY

2011-11-08T07:00:00.000+02:00

Our country is just a bunch of tribes, a rattle in thesilence.

I’m preparing my face for the gates of hopelessness—

old man’s empty sack. He sat on the ground.

Every day a stray dog passed by on the street, he used to

pat it to remember sometimes the scholars and scribes

had no place to dream.

(November 5, 2011)

RIGHT

2011-11-06T17:57:00.000+02:00

It wasn’t me, you’re right—

making plans to stay

in tanks of ice water, outdoors for hours

at midnight in the cold.

It wasn’t me, you’re right—we’ll

force them to change the starry water,

while the world changes us.

You were right about the river, temperatures

below freezing. It just wasn’t me

you were right about.

(November 5, 2011)

LITTLE BOY

2011-11-03T18:22:00.002+02:00

I’m just a little boy with broken arms,

a little boy with a lump of sugar in his pocket

and machines in his hands. I will never again feel

my arms around you; they’re no good broken.

I try to remember sometimes

the way I fear the little things that keep me going.

I don’t fear the floors covered with

horse dung, but I fear the machines.

(November 2, 2011)

AMERICAN

2011-11-03T00:54:00.000+02:00

It’s easy to move on. You’re American,

but something keeps you standing there in silence.

You’re American, but something keeps you

standing there in the whole life. You’re

American, but there are blood feuds.

(November 2, 2011)

PRIVATE

2011-10-29T00:52:00.000+02:00

A flume, shone in our faces; a flume,

watched by empty silhouettes—

distant thunder, creaky wooden floors.

All men are sinners, be afraid of the cold.

All men are sinners, be afraid of the flood.

(October 25, 2011)

TAKE IT ALL AWAY

2011-10-25T02:01:00.003+02:00

We’re different people, we’re not the same wispy cobwebs.

We took a ride in an old convertible once—

after me comes the doorway.

We’re not the dirt some bridges won’t burn.

Though I waited, we’re different.

I take pictures, they inherit your blood—

we’re not the pretty dresses you wear.

We’re different people, we’re not the same.

(October 22, 2011)

WASTED AND WEARY

2011-10-23T08:36:00.003+02:00

I look to the trees—

find the wind and the poison bite and the way home;

your faith in the forgotten torch.

I look to the rain—

you to the rocks and the light;

we are just passing ghosts, all that leads to your soul,you,

alone in shreds, alone in the poison bite,

and your door I must keep.

I look to the trees—

hold the path that leads to your soul;

hold the path of our passing ghosts, all that leads to me.

I look to the rain—

seeing things that lead to me, I carried the lanterns high,

working so hard for our survival, alone in the rain;

our survival, alone with the forgotten torch.

I look to the trees—

your faith in the poison bite, I follow the forgotten torch;

I follow the rain alone in the poison bite.

(October 18, 2011)

THE RIVER STARTS TO RUN

2011-10-02T22:00:00.000+02:00

No one ever leaned eyes upon my harbor lights.

No one ever leaned on my best survivors in the night.

This sense of isolation inspires you—

all the dirt, all the same.

Wretched desert takes its form, gluey feathers on a millionyears.

She is smiling and the photo is smiling, the river starts torun.

She is rediscovered in the night, rediscovered in thedarkness,

hoping someone might come near.

No one ever leaned eyes upon my harbor lights.

No one ever leaned on my best survivors in the night.

(September 30, 2011)

IN EVERYTHING I COULD SEE YOU

2011-09-30T22:00:00.000+03:00

I love the times and bear the times,

and long the deep.

In everything I could see you,

and long the world another way,

and long the darkness pulls in everything.

I could step free of every dream I ever

set my weight upon. I could step free

of every road I leaned my heart upon.

I could step free of every dream in the night—

every dream I could step free of,

every dream I could take care of,

every dream.

I wish I could be you, and see you could

get through, another way I could be you.

I love the times and bear the times.

In everything I could see you.

In everything I could be you.

(September 30, 2011)

ON DIRT GROUND

2011-09-25T00:30:00.001+03:00

Three men stood around me,

they made me shoot them.

There they talked with water,

one on dirt ground while thinking about people

I don’t like, the other a father sprung like a wild orchid.

Three men stood around me, one on two sides.

There he talked with the airy glade. There he talked

with the prisoners, to stand with the prisoners,

to belong. I ran back to my car, all alone.

Three men stood around me,

and then with the rain I don’t like.

There I walked on two sides. I was like

a wild orchid in the vine, sprung like a father.

Three men stood around me,

they made me shoot them.

There they talked with the prisoners,

where all the air holes froze up.

(September 23, 2011)

TIMSHEL

2011-08-27T18:03:00.001+03:00

On some mornings it was like you had been unfrozen
by heavy boughs, when you would hold onto
the small ores in the natives’ still river. In every battle
we have to turn our backs to the trees, and all we remembered
lay quietly in our hands. Watching the night
is another end to their new beginning, soon everything
will be thinking of trees. And when my hand in summer
sees these cold and damp white warnings, I wonder if
when I smile I’ll be walking with you.

(August 26, 2011)

I LOOK UP

2011-07-01T13:30:00.001+03:00

I set out on a good road for a time when I can do well
with another. Without the plain, ghosts have soft light;
and I won’t notice my parents, for my young life
beats out alone under the wind and comes into the wreck site.
If only it was water separating us again.

As time passed, the sun shining down on the still trees outside,
my father struggled for more to say. From this way, too, keep us again,
he asked if I had told him everything. But as time goes on
we can plant our hills with tall weeds, yet our feet
will not wear much memory into them.

(June 30, 2011)

AND WE STOOD TALL

2011-06-30T07:58:00.000+03:00

After the distractions of luck, there are always
possibilities on the table. The light doesn’t seem to go,
the days almost Arctic in length. They will never see
that the basement of words is the silent headlight
out on the interstate, and it keeps us linked. I run and run
and it’s grassland again; that is a time
when you put them all together: a haunted dream,
a period of art, my own hand, and my grandfather’s 97th birthday.

The river was long ago cut by the still trees
outside my window, but you can see
it won’t unlock everything. And there are always
possibilities in the storm. I will be better off by myself.

(June 29, 2011)

RUN SILENT, RUN DEEP

2011-06-25T00:11:00.000+03:00

I dreamed last night that the pungent spring aroma
of a sidewalk tree was dizzying. Even our steps are other days:
the brig and sugar packets, circular saws and kitchen doors
left open—ideal for the soldier who goes from war to war
and who doesn’t have time to blow the bridge.

Those old voices and memories lie quietly in the axe,
just take from them every strike of the concords.
Splintered window frames hold the cold trail,
and no one knows where only the rain comes in.
I am at peace, though I don’t like seeing my father
pour wine into his glass.

(June 23, 2011)

FINDING A WAY

2011-06-09T00:22:00.001+03:00

You dreamed of peace, but you didn’t know
what you needed. What you’re looking for
will fall into your hills and be strong. From here,
I’d be the desert just to be strong. I went quiet
all those years ago—from here and from home, I swim,
for our families have been forgotten completely.

Look over your hope with good seeds—you run
to give it all up, and I don’t even remember
the big Blackfoot River.

(June 5, 2011)

COLD IS THE RIVER

2011-06-02T10:10:00.000+03:00

Cold is the river if I swim, and death is now
reaching the bone. Cold is the past,
and it is slowly seeping from our wisdom and our homes.
If nothing is a bad feeling about how elusive they are to me,
then I’d rather sleep.

All the king’s horses fall—all he was to do
was stand in, and now with no way out,
he spontaneously began to hide. I visit his grave;
in the enjoyable times, I can’t help but think
about the same strokes and his salute to me.

Cold is the slowness of homes,
and death is now thinking about me.

(May 31, 2011)

DORMANT

2011-05-11T08:15:00.000+03:00

A thousand orange trees and vineyards
dissolved in war must be terribly conflicted.
We are conditioned in our lives to look upon
a wild orchid in need; the yellow hand is a lost period
of ourselves to give. And we are conditioned in war
to lead people to know who is needed, for those closest
wonder when comes the way home,
and the levee breaks in the enemy as a loved one
who eludes us. Internally men are willing to help,
though we look upon a faceless lord, shared by everyone
but spoken of us. Something
must lead people just to survive.

(May 9, 2011)

WARMING UP

2011-03-31T22:33:00.000+02:00

We may keep missing what is always unlocked,
I wish we never made it to the border.
In some ways the dead all around you
are aware of the times, the guillotine is high
because it means the flowers from your hair will not make
it all the way. I had asked myself over and over—
waiting for the weak blood in the wall. My silence was at least
time to discuss things, time to mask my contempt for everyone.
When I think in the window, there’s always more to discuss.

Mysterious frozen smiles, in many ways it comes
to tell each other our feelings. In some ways I’m happy
to stop ghosts who have no need to jump into something
so quickly.

From this hill you loved me, breaking glass
on the other side of sound. You are suddenly
the outsider looking inside, and houses are bridges
that just won’t burn—even if anyone in there
still knows you and wonders
if anyone out there still knows who I am.

(March 30, 2011)

THE BOOK OF HOURS (2011)

2011-03-20T20:24:00.000+02:00

I lack confidence in the wine fields.
I lack confidence in the cloisters.
The old ways of my blood will always be the source that seeing has forgotten.
I have died, and now there is no light to pray.

(3/2/11)

* * *

Our daily prayer is a time, sometimes a break
from the blankets that were to keep us warm,
a break from the wounds of candles.

(3/3/11)

* * *

God’s wrath is quiet for one left to know—
we go at peace and say, “Oh, I can make it.”
But will there be clear water on the good you do?
The mistakes still breathe inside your head.

(3/4/11)

* * *

How strange to see the curtains rise.
How strange to see the leaves are blowing—
you have not grown old.
The sun sinks into it all from far away.

So many live on the bridge.
So many live on and solitary.
So many live on and don’t want anything.

So many live on and solitary.

(3/5/11)

* * *

The old national flag is shown before the door opens,
hanging like flies on the same brilliant light,
hanging like flies on the necks of prisoners.
I’ve come back to remind you.

He walked out, and now for the rest of my life
I will have to fast.

(3/6/11)

* * *

You’ve asked me to the mountain.
You’ve asked me to set free my most holy thoughts.
You’ve asked me to the porch.

Left alone in flames, we feel you
whenever we feel that particular dream.

(3/7/11)

* * *

Drag this old body to set free my father’s empire,
pain increases until there’s nothing left under the darkness.
Keys are left under the bridge
for anyone who has been trapped by this city.

(3/8/11)

* * *

The country is this grey time machine,
an ache for a different kind of reunion.
Scratching the past, scratching the spring,
it all looks the same.

Our pious hands lay a different kind of year.
Cathedrals are open toward us.

(3/9/11)

* * *

I was there in the room on the day you were born.
I was there before, already know
the dead that walked this life.

Camping out in the thicket, no mercy has the way home.
Keep digging when too many others tell you
to let go of my being, until too many others tell you why.

Homes are too many people we once knew;
cathedrals are not real anymore,
everything that’s happened to us…

(3/10/11)

* * *

The Virgin Mary’s shattered face on the darkness
of my senses drops into the church to see it all
from thousands of distant friends.

There are faces that are so sincere and voices so quiet,
left alone in everything.
The hands lay a cover over you
whenever we feel that you are gone.

(3/11/11)

* * *

Our devout hands prepare a lonely place,
and when I am a lonely place, monks in the apple orchards
keep the silence. And when I am a lonely place,
I’ll walk with you through the desert.
Watchmen climb up to the city of angels
and keep the burned vines.

(3/12/11)

* * *

The elderly sit in the corridors, holding their clocks.
The elderly sit in dreams and pass quickly.
And I am troubled as the mob flees.

Something created from my blood will always be
the faces of tears, far from our childhood,
far from our fields.

(3/13/11)

* * *

I’ve been doing some thinking, searching for a traveler
of the spring streets of Venice. But the old brick by the new
cannot be born, and you go home when people know nothing.
We will live and die in these bodies, but I lost my way
when I lost my best friend, searching for a thousand orange trees
on the streets of San Francisco.

(3/14/11)

* * *

You took a piece of the world,
and on the day you walked through cemeteries kept the darkest night.
You took a piece of the storm, a piece of the way home.
You were born this empty child of mine,
planting the fig trees and sleeping in the fields.
And I will not break your fears, soon as you
move on with your life.

(3/15/11)

* * *

Finding the hill receives the way
by forgetting a lifetime of sunlight in every mirror,
by walking across the river that has proven its worth
in things stored up inside of experience. Today I sat
on the heavy boughs of the tree, but the pain of it
won’t unlock the future. A little time won’t change
that stumbling that leads the way
through this dark part of redemption.

(3/16/11)

* * *

It’s easy to unravel this old freedom, like a thousand years
to see a village. I sat for a thousand years to give it all
for a storm, to see that everything would be all right.
And still it’s hard somehow to dwell in treetops,
to let go of the pain of distant friends.
Today I will take a life someone else always wins.

(3/17/11)

* * *

Playgrounds are a part of people we may keep missing.
It all gets lost in front of the trees, and I will try to
stop ghosts that have no need for tomorrow.
You to the dead keep digging when my eyes close
the discovery of a sudden change of weather.

(3/18/11)

* * *

I dreamed of you, and we found each other
wandering in the dark. Even pilgrims forget what it is
to prop the lanterns high. The guillotine is delayed
and we hold our candles in the cold. No mercy
has the sea, but I close my eyes full of vengeance.

(3/19/11)

* * *

The earth still circles around, and suddenly
turns to a storm over a storm over
a thousand olive trees; my head will be tears
in a lifetime of greater ones—the fog of humanity.
I have my worries, and the world suddenly turns
to unthread this tired century.

(3/20/11)

* * *

:: For the Feast of Naw-Rúz ::

The war chest is a mystery to the grief of the door.
I know you find your way by touch, only green hills
as the path to move onto either side.

Then, with little distance between us, how to write
about you today because it will change tomorrow,
or a sudden change of trees and current events.
History will go on on your roofs and I don’t know
if we’ll be able to know, or how to prepare for a thousand
footprints.

Every place you see, what I saw before
may hold true, or maybe it is all coming to the river
that has halted for a time.

(3/21/11)

CREW

2010-06-03T20:37:00.001+03:00

It may never be clear. We walk
this desert, you can see
the flames for miles. A horse
with no saddle walks past us.

The fire leads me
to a stream of fresh water.
This needs to be the end,
I need this to be forgiven again—
my time is up. Empty coffers are all we have left.

(June 3, 2010)

BUENOS AIRES

2010-05-28T10:28:00.002+03:00

The train takes us from our families
and homes. The baby you once cared for
will one day spit on you.

You dream of peace,
You dream of judgment—
a revolution without artillery.
I can make it across the river
if I swim.

(May 27, 2010)

WE DIG FOR BONES

2010-05-15T01:34:00.001+03:00

We dig for bones in a shallow grave,
but treasures slowly fade away.
I can still feel you. But will there be clear water
on the day of judgment, a break
from the past?
This is not goodbye,
but just where we go.

(May 15, 2010)

CHRISTINE

2010-05-15T01:33:00.001+03:00

I live across from the park,
it’s a new place to live.
But the helicopter flies overhead,
it reminds us of who we are.

These eucalyptus trees are here
for us to hide behind, they take
the fear away. I won’t be forgiven again—
my time is up.

(May 15, 2010)

THE BOOK OF HOURS (2010)

2010-03-21T12:45:00.000+02:00

I am only the food I eat—
everything sort of stops existing
during the day, and the world
is better for it. At night,
we know what it is
to be human again.

(3/2/10)

* * *

The response to prayers at dawn
is silence. It’s not deaf ears,
but not what you’re looking for.

(3/3/10)

* * *

We are selling and marketing a war,
and it is hard to find joy in it.
But others can’t see that.

We’ve run out of water, and today
may just be another day without food
if we’re looking to be heroes.

(3/4/10)

* * *

The aloneness of morning
is no different today than any other day—
I am present for the sunrise.

There is no reason to hope for anything anymore,
just be ready for whatever comes.

(3/5/10)

* * *

The victory is everything to some,
but means nothing to the rest of us—
a few nickels in our pockets
don’t get us very far.

Our death will be pointless, but the fight
will still happen.

(3/6/10)

* * *

If I am unpatriotic, there is nothing
I can do—your flag or mine,
there will be no way out of this,
not on this earth. Even surrender
and resignation will not light the path
of our escape. You never know
when the roof will fall in on you.

(3/7/10)

* * *

They say I should not desert,
but there is nothing left to defend,
no good reason to keep fighting.
Even king and country have seen this.

I should have been a fisherman.

(3/8/10)

* * *

God’s changeless existence
is my attrition, gifts get taken back
in the end. There is little pride
to die for anything else.

(3/9/10)

* * *

I have just a memory of that open door,
maybe I still carry with me what
others forgot about long ago.
Some find generosity
in the fleeting days of this life;

all I can give is an empty heart,
but someone may find it useful.

(3/10/10)

* * *

We pray and pray, and make it through
to the next morning, but are our prayers
answered? The other side falls,
but is the hand of God?
What if we all gave our lives
for a mistake?

Nobody wants to answer that.

(3/11/10)

* * *

On a day like this is when
you lose your friends.
This coastline will not be ours forever—

the closer you get to the ground,
the longer you live.

(3/12/10)

* * *

Our freedoms are not static—
they change over time.
Love of my country is not the same
as love of my father’s country. That nation,
it doesn’t exist anymore.
And for my sons, this one will be gone.

It’s quite a view from up here,
once you make it to the top.
Many will never get to see it.

(3/13/10)

* * *

Some lose brothers, some don’t.
Stay quiet—
only demoralized souls
walk through this field.

It’s time to clean our boots.

(3/14/10)

* * *

In our country, infants don’t wave
little flags in their fists.
A rescue mission is
a lost cause. You fight
for the lost causes harder than
any others, you even die for them.
If God’s not with us, who is?

(3/15/10)

* * *

For every day we stay here,
the farther away from home we feel.
We will never make it out of here
alive, but we hold the bridge.
And it’s hard to tell
what we’ve earned.

(3/16/10)

* * *

There are still a lot of buildings
to crumble to the ground,
I can’t understand what the foreigners
are saying to me.

The lies are what keep us moving
every day, and I will stay right here,
even if they’re all that’s left.

(3/17/10)

* * *

Just let me keep digging the hole,
if it keeps me alive a little longer.
The people coming for me
hate me already. In a place like this,
when was the last time you felt good
about anything?

(3/18/10)

* * *

There is nothing left to bargain with—
we are asked to love a country that
does not love us, but love it we will.
We do not miss our fathers’ olive trees,
but we give them up in God’s name.

(3/19/10)

* * *

There will be no nation to hide behind,
no country to come to our aid—
we will never get that land back.

Chased by hounds, that’s all we’ll ever be.
You could have been my son, but a new pair
of shiny, clean boots will
have to make the difference.

(3/20/10)

* * *

:: For the Feast of Naw-Rúz ::

We can be seen by others, for we do not exist.
No one can identify who we are.
Others have a place on earth, at last,
but we have no more home
to go home to. But come to my house
across the river and break bread with me.

After the blood washes away,
the hills again become green.

(3/21/10)
[The Book of Hours project.]

THE FRONT DOOR

2010-02-18T22:31:00.003+02:00

The front door is always unlocked,
but we may not see each other again
until old age. For all the good you do,
the mistakes still breathe inside your head.
We will never be a part of something
like that again, playgrounds are a thing of the past.
Some people we never know how to know—
we go it alone tonight.
Someone tells you to go at peace,
you say, “Oh, I am at peace.”

The front door is always unlocked,
I hope I can make it across the border.

(February 2010)

WE’VE LOST A LOT

2010-02-13T19:53:00.005+02:00

Some day out in the harbor, when the sun
comes up, we will see a thread of smoke rise.
We’ve lost a lot—day-to-day friendships,
and heavy symbolic gestures remain.

We hold on, and step forward
in our heavy boots, hoping we’re strong.
I think a lot about that night—
punishment because God loves me.

The last link to the past is brushed across
the table, it’s been so long without it.
All that’s left is an old man, an unforgiving
cowboy that’s past his prime.

(February 13, 2010)

SOME BURIED TREASURES

2010-02-11T00:23:00.000+02:00

A new war we didn’t see coming
reaches the front door just as things
start to make sense—a new reverie.
There are some buried treasures
even we can’t ever find.

I’m just a visitor to this land.
This sea air is breathed by rich people—
let’s see what it’s like. The ones
that came here are different.

I don’t tell people a lot of things.
You don’t want to make it harder
on anyone, so you make it harder on
yourself.

(February 11, 2010)

I’LL BE RIGHT HERE

2010-02-10T23:27:00.000+02:00

A hot plate of food
and laughter around the table—
all that’s gone now.
The dream doesn’t change:
on the outside for some, on the inside
for others.

Out in the boat, hoping for sleep, looking for mercy,
I am at the core of my life.
The water is cold and black,
and there’s nowhere left to run—
I miss my friend.

The higher I drift above marshland, the farther
I can fall. The feeling of earth in our hands
is a distant memory,
another mile with every year.

But a voice seldom heard, just one pop,
glimpses us Paradise—
we lived there once.

(February 10, 2010)

BRIEF MOMENTS

2010-02-03T23:25:00.000+02:00

There’s the lady in the rocking chair.
We walk back into our forest
past wolves and coyotes
nobody knows are there, past
the old Mystic River, with fireflies
all around us. We just need to find
our way back.

There will come a time
when our memories
can no longer to be trusted.
Sometimes we do the wrong thing in life,
maybe it gets taken back—
if not by us then by somebody else.

(February 3, 2010)

WORDS FROM THE RUBBLE

2010-02-01T23:41:00.001+02:00

All the years of the past and future
are breaking waves on a distant shore.
Hard to believe something
is still holding us all together.

There must be some day we’ll be reunited—
all these words from underneath
the rubble we’ll never find.
Somewhere along the way,
I forget to stop and rest by the fire.

I’m on the road to Ongwediva,
across the green and quiet countryside—
I finish conversations in my head.
Some day I will give back all these meaningless things.

I’m one sand dune among thousands,
I’m the lone cross in the middle
of the desert—watching over the dead,
nobody knows who I am.

Rain is pouring down, I’m a wet ghost.
I will leave empty-handed.
There is great hope for the future—
I hope to see my friend and shake his hand,
on the other side of the dry river.
No more separation, no more sadness.

(February 2010)

SOME OF US ARE NOT HEROES

2009-12-20T01:23:00.000+02:00

Above the sky turns gray,
lay down my head by the wayside.
Freedom comes soon to us, but it’s easier
on the inside of these walls
than on the outside.
Approvals made, forms stamped,
and a life in fear once we smile
and say goodbye. It will hurt us more
than we think.

What’s in you stays in you;
what’s in me stays in me—no soul
cries aloud, but cries silently.
Unfortunately, some of us
are not heroes, just humans
who see better than we should.
Chains, lime quarries and blinding dust
will tie us to our future.
Redemption means more
for our captors than it does for us,
but there will be calls for peace.

The steeple rises above the avenue,
the trees have nearly finished shedding
their fiery red and golden leaves.
They line our pondered roads—
we learn forgiveness so reluctantly,
and pay the heaviest price for that.

(December 19, 2009)

ACORNS AND AUTUMN LEAVES

2009-12-03T07:14:00.002+02:00

I know a man who remembers time
by the year of the model of car.
Sitting in the back seat
in the middle of the night, the toy trucks
are left behind, buried in the dirt
in the front yard.
It’s the last time we’ll see each other.
Our separate routines
will become normal, the way to our front doors
will change.

Standing over the grave of my grandfather,
I learn why we don’t forgive easily.
And decades later, some people say,
“We still don’t know what we did wrong.”
Hard for any of us to know, it seems.
And looking back, it’s not the same
as when we were young.

In war, we pass briefly by
what could have been family. And in peace
it’s the same. But towns and cities fall
just like us.

(December 3, 2009)

FACES

2009-11-12T11:11:00.003+02:00

In photographs from over a hundred years ago
there is a fortitude in the faces,
they see more than themselves in everything.

Twice today I have made the same stumble.
That’s where the war chest is buried,
but it won’t unlock everything.
The mind starts drifting off
in unpleasant, mapped-out directions,
creating narratives that aren’t real
but could some day be.

All our lives we dreamed about it,
when none of it meant anything. The top is down,
all the money we ever made
belongs now to the wind.

Knowing what is coming, the tears in your eyes say:
I wish we could have met in some other time,
in some other place. The roles that society
has written for us
keep us from seeing each other’s divinity.
The space between us
turns us into broken, lonely people.
You can see it in our faces, we cling
to the last brick. We may keep missing
what is looking for us.

(November 2009)

THROUGH THE HEARTLAND

2009-10-23T08:23:00.002+02:00

We waited for good news to come from
down the road, somehow we knew
what was coming was good. But fidelity
to the wrong god changed everything.
Closing our eyes to the sky, it didn’t take long.

Each breath is different now.
I could only understand my own blindness
through someone else’s turmoil. Quite how
my silence contaminated everything,
I can’t decide.

We have our house and rhododendrons,
bellies full of warm food and our bed.
We have our means, but there’s a coldness
that permeates our paper thin walls,
it won’t leave us alone.

Everybody has their mile—
windmills and sunflowers, shutting down
a machine that has lasted for generations,
our lives will not be the same.
There are only glimpses, murmurs on the wind—
sometimes the mile is so long.

I paused on the side of that road; I could just
continue along all the way to the far edge,
and try to be of good heart.

(October 2009)

I AM WITNESS

2009-09-21T21:38:00.000+03:00

A group of Nazis mourn the loss
of some fallen in a torch-lit synagogue,
a Jewish man weeps for a lost Arab
in a candlelit mosque and embraces me—
one more lifetime swallowed up.
I am witness to things beyond my control.

I am reunited with a friend for lunch
in a crowded cafeteria,
I watch the birth of my first child
without seeing the face of the mother—
take me back to where I came from.
I am witness to things beyond my understanding.

(September 21, 2009)

REFLECTIONS ON SEPTEMBER 11TH

2009-09-15T22:59:00.000+03:00

I laid my head down on a fall afternoon,
there is little for me to mourn anymore.
Those years are waves crashing
on some distant shore, a foreign land.
I gazed so long into the peaceful blue sky,
it seemed like I wasn’t here anymore.
There is something different
to be remembered. Mine is a passive thought
for others, but late at night on the TV,
the emotions on peoples’ faces are still raw,
the bell still ringing.

(September 12, 2009)

INSIDE OF ME

2009-06-21T09:15:00.001+03:00

If I were burned
on a pyre, I would want my ashes
to be spread on the water.
The way of truth and love always wins,
but slowly and painfully.
The tyrant, the oppressor, the sinner,
the criminal—they are all most visible
in my own eye, even in my
greatest devotion.
We are our own last best hope
for peace in this life.

(June 20, 2009)

SPACEMAN

2009-06-02T08:36:00.002+03:00

Today I sat for a long time
not knowing what to think about,
my worries and hopes
taking no solid form, not breathing
on their own. Everything is possible
when the world
suddenly turns to sand. I have my place.

The earth still circles around the sun,
while we all strive for a freedom of mind
and soul that we have not seen before.
It will take a thousand years to unravel
this old freedom, and a thousand years
to see a new one slowly weave together.

I am waiting for a mystery to
descend upon me, like a storm over a village.
I am waiting for a change—
breathing, breathing.

(June 2, 2009)

WEEKS LATER

2009-04-24T09:39:00.002+03:00

Out here on this empty road, with only
the tiny vibrations of the highway,
and the horizon, I wonder if we’re going
to make it home tonight.

People will eventually be gone—
I don’t know how it will feel, for youth
to give way to mortality. We’ve spent
most of our days leaving things behind,
not sure what will be missed
in the future. I don’t know anything,
except that change will come.
Will we ever really feel settled?

We spend so much time
wondering if we’re
walking in the wrong direction—
if our best intentions
are enough to find our way.
We don’t have answers, but we have
questions. No solution, but a burden.
They will get us by.

And the morning.
They will all get us by.

(April 24, 2009)

WITHOUT THINKING

2009-04-05T23:12:00.003+03:00

This occasional but heavy feeling creeps up on you
as dusk approaches: Here is another piece of our lives
that means nothing. Our aim is off again.

Getting down to the coast,
the water and the horizon
seem to lean in quietly, almost
silently, echoing the same message
with the confidence
that it will some day be heard: “It’s not here.”

We try and we try, and it just doesn’t
seem to be the way we envision it. Everything
has been replaced, and this is what now exists between us:
“Good-bye old friend—I can’t make you stay.”
“Good-bye to you—you won’t be seeing me again.”

(April 5, 2009)

2009-03-20T07:39:00.000+02:00

All doors open when they need to,
the light is not the end.

Some days, we race blindly into the dawn,
with the praise of God—
a thousand birds
singing a thousand songs
with no words—
pushing us forward.
Not for what has come,
but what is coming.

(March 20, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-18T07:36:00.001+02:00

My shape is not the shape of others.
I remember the same solemn things
as everyone—

things greater than us.
But I say little.

Silence is often the wisest option,
out in dark and wet streets.

(March 18, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-15T08:25:00.000+02:00

I want to cross the bridge
that only penitent men pass.
In me, I see weakness,
but there is a strength
that does not come from
my own breathing.

My bones will reach toward their brittle end,
but in that time
I will learn to bear
the heavy weight of God.

(March 15, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-14T07:56:00.000+02:00

A fire starts in my dreams,
and sleep is driven from my eyes.
Everything is quickly gone—

given to the sky above.
Little glimpses of what is to come
are windows to the future.

(March 14, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-14T07:53:00.000+02:00

From this window,
I see one of the names of God—

‘the Uprooter’.
A new hour strikes.

I wander this vast desert,
looking for the beginning,

and the end.
They are nowhere in sight.

(March 14, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-13T08:23:00.000+02:00

Jesus tells His mother,
“I can’t stay another day longer,”
but she remains behind.

I hope one day
I find it okay to stay somewhere
even when all that’s left is a shadow.

(March 13, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-13T08:22:00.000+02:00

There is a secret for every hour,
waiting for us to find it.
It covers us like rain,
and I continue circling around
the Throne of God without any words.
There is a light behind that door,
yearning to shine on us.

(March 13, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-13T08:20:00.000+02:00

God’s great song feeds some of us,
without our being aware of it—

welling up from deep in the earth
to feed our ancient roots, pushing us
beyond our bounds.

Others see it fall from the sky
and let it wash them clean.

The world continues along its journey,
reaching for the promised day of freedom
from our own oppression and treason.

(March 10, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-09T07:55:00.002+02:00

Light on the horizon
makes its daily emergence.
Some days, my eyes are able to see it.
We are created out of love,
for love—

not guilt, not repression.

(March 9, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-09T07:53:00.000+02:00

I awake as dreamer at dawn,
the spirit raises my body
from the ground,
able to offer unweighted prayers.

People sit with me, they come from
invisible spaces, they are unseen but there.
The fire that burns outside my door
helps keep me warm.

(March 9, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-08T08:40:00.003+02:00

I will have to find my destiny for myself,
God’s unveiling is painful,
lessons come slowly.
Like spring that is born to the tree
that has been beaten and battered
by winter storms.

(March 8, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

2009-03-08T08:38:00.001+02:00

Many days the sun doesn’t come up,
but I still praise Thee.

Time stands still, this future will not
come to pass,
our hearts sing songs that our voices can’t.
And only Thy ears can hear them.

I am not somebody who’s seen the light—
when I lay my head on my pillow,
and when morning comes,
mine’s a cold and broken Yá Bahá’u’l-Abhá.

(March 8, 2009)
[The Book of Hours project.]

COLLAGE: ENGLISH DREAMS

2009-02-16T12:00:00.001+02:00

I opened your letter yesterday,
I could not believe my eyes. I’ve already given
all I have to give, I’ve worked myself to the bone—
suck the marrow, drain my soul.
Pay your dues and your debts, pay your respects—
everybody tells you, you pay for what you get.
Whatever you finally came out and said, it still
didn’t say much. But the silence
fills in the blanks, for me anyway. That must have been
the last worthless evening that you had to spend with me,
it came a long time ago. It’s probably the same
for me, I’ll figure it out some day; I am a slow learner.
But my head still says there’s hope to cling to,
says, “Keep on trying boy, she’s gonna change.”
I trust you’d say if I was wasting my time,
but I guess I missed again.

Over and over, I keep on telling myself—
over and over, I hope I’m going to wake up,
but over and over, I know it’s really happening,
and there’s nothing that I can say—
nothing can change all the things you do to me.
Everybody asks me how she’s doing—
has she really lost her mind?
I say, “I couldn’t tell you—
I’ve lost mine.”

I sit in this hospital room,
eating my hospital food. I look at all
the lovely people. Now, I’m not one to complain,
but this hanging around is wearing me out.
The doctors say, “Well, if we can help you, we will.
You're looking tired and sick. As I count backwards,
your eyes will become heavy. Sleep…allow
yourself to fall? It won’t hurt. With your consent,
I can experiment further still.”
So patch me up, boys, take me home—
are you not hearing a world I’m saying?
She sounds so different on the phone,
I just sink like a stone back to the bay.
When it’s over, I’ll still be back. Everyone will be
unrecognizable, but they’ll say to me,
“Hello again, it’s been too long.”

(2/15/09)

IF WE CAN HELP YOU, WE WILL

2009-02-08T09:37:00.000+02:00

More often than I would like, it happens
by daylight, rather than by living room light.
But the ritual must still have some freshness
every day, to keep you coming back—
there must be upheavals, to keep you
clinging to the golden thread.
Nothing else around you
stays the same either—there is peace and prosperity,
there is betrayal and abandonment.
One day I will no longer
be a prisoner of any of these.

(February 8, 2009)

I’M COMING BACK HOME

2009-01-26T07:45:00.002+02:00

I’m not going anywhere, you’re not going anywhere.
We’re not going anywhere. A little time
won’t change that. What I saw before
may still hold true, or maybe
it was buried and lost.

Every place you run to,
everywhere you turn, you find pain.
I have to walk across the desert
just to shed this skin. We can only find our way
by touch, in search of some kind of redemption.

(January 26, 2009)

TAKE ME WITH YOU

2009-01-08T10:11:00.001+02:00

I close my eyes, the dawn is
coming. There is more warmth
even before the sunrise. Love
me down more and more.

The road is now visible—
mud and thorny rose stems
line the path to the end,
the petals on either side, and beyond that,
no evidence of humanity—
only green hills as far as the eye can see.

I am not the first person on this
road (there are footprints of greater ones in the mud), but
I am alone and barefoot. My head will hang low,
there will be tears in my eyes—
I can see that. Some will be
with me, but invisibly—
a voice that says, “I’ll be by your side.”

What is gone won’t be relived, it’s found its way
into my blood.
There are few regrets.

I open my eyes.
It is day out.

(January 8, 2009)

LATELY

2009-01-06T09:44:00.001+02:00

From here, the bridge lights
burn brightly. That I could
get lost in that silence
between here and there…

It’s easy to be strong, to give it all up,
to move on. But something keeps you
standing there in silence, not letting things
get lost in a dark sea and
forgotten completely.

The lights on the bridge flicker.

(January 6, 2009)

THE BATTLES OF OTHERS

2008-12-24T21:49:00.000+02:00

Like a spectator on a hill,
you can see the battles coming
to others, and how it will all lead
to victory in the end.

But when, God, is my war coming?
When will my hands be bloody?

(December 24, 2008)

INTERSECTIONS

2008-12-21T08:00:00.001+02:00

It is time for me to set my sails
for a different horizon;
you have to go where things happen.

My raft carries me to my island
that isn’t much bigger than me—
the whales are my emissaries.

We came together and now we part,
like we always do—wish for others’ peace
down the road.

Someone out there is sad,
it’s good to say
a prayer for them.

(December 21, 2008)

VISION

2008-12-12T09:31:00.002+02:00

“…reflect upon the perfection of man’s creation, and that all these planes and states are folded up and hidden away within him…Then we must labor to destroy the animal condition, till the meaning of humanity shall come to light.” —Bahá’u’lláh

I came down the hill
to a different world than I left—
I see a more empty world than most, and it’s
more sad for them than it is for me.
So I look out my window,
and turn off my light. This is where
we should be.

The next morning, there are no more answers
to our questions, but we hold tight to
those things we’ve learned.
But if you see the light on in the
window of my room, it doesn’t mean
I’m waiting for anything.
Maybe the future
will have more meaning for us all.

(December 12, 2008)

FREEDOM

2008-12-10T06:57:00.001+02:00

“Yet those who journey in the garden land of knowledge, because they see the end in the beginning, see peace in war and friendliness in anger.” —Bahá’u’lláh

I glanced at the book and thought,
“Everything’s lost.”

I found God in a handful of dust
and went up to the top of the hill,
opened my hand and let the wind
carry it away,
for someone else to find…

(December 10, 2008)

BE READY

2008-12-09T07:12:00.001+02:00

A prayer will help you find
your voice in the crowd.
Be ready for what it tells you.

Tomorrow the sun will rise.
Be ready for what it will show you
about our world.

Our elbows may graze.
Be ready for
unexpected clouds.

Turn to the gate and leave your message there.
Be ready for what God sends—
even if it is a sword for your own head.

Pin your heart out on your sleeve.
Be ready for silence that is neither
ominous nor reassuring.

The hills will become barren.
Be ready to feel the dryness yourself—
it may be long, but it won’t be permanent.

(December 9, 2008)

THE STORM WILL SLIP AWAY

2008-12-02T16:56:00.000+02:00

Walking across the bridge, nothing is said,
even the river has halted for a time. The future
seems clear—that city on the hill
receives the only shaft of sunlight
in a grey-streaked sky—
but getting there will be murky.

I know you see what I see—
finding the way by forgetting a lifetime
of experience. It will be hard.
But that stumbling will lead to a dance
we both know.

(December 2, 2008)

I HOPE IT’S NOT LONG

2008-11-12T18:54:00.000+02:00

It’s a lonely road
sometimes, waiting for the rain
to clear away. Life moves on
for everyone—more sadness than we expected
for some, happiness for others.
It doesn’t stay frozen in time.
I sit alone in this quiet room, watching the world
go by, and every day it’s a different world—
everyone on different paths
to one single future.

There is silence
because there are too many other people
in this crowded room. We are
still trying to figure out if this is how
it should be. Will our silence
make this gorge that needs to be crossed wider,
or is this just how our earth
is mapped out? Is this how you and I
will find peace, find our way
to the future?

(November 11, 2008)

I LEFT ALL THE BEAUTY BEHIND

2008-10-29T07:07:00.001+02:00

As soon as I came down off the mountain,
I left all the beauty behind, not knowing
how to take it with me.

Up there, the fire burns on,
and the only voices you hear are happy ones—
some tired, some bruised, but unbroken
and unregretful.
They will one day
help the world find its way
out of this dark night.

(October 29, 2008)

CIRCLES

2008-10-08T08:15:00.000+02:00

The chance for proof is coming,
maybe nobody but me
will see or know it. To some,
I may be dark and lost, to others,
someone who has proven his worth in gold.

But the silence behind it all
is the torchlight, for everyone.

We look for a little sunlight in every
mirror, to find our way
through this dark part of the world.
All these secret things stored up inside of us
disappear in the fog of steps we take
to get from one place to the next,

it keeps us from finding value in things
where there is none.

(October 8, 2008)

TRAVELING SOUTH

2008-09-13T00:07:00.002+03:00

The next few years will be
sporadic, standing on dry earth.
I collect rocks, hoping for
some meaning.

Down the road is a dusty path—
I’ll be on it with many others,
but probably with a different stride,
on a different search.
I hope I’m not alone the whole way.

One day, there will be a liberation, where the rising air
will give you a new perspective. But it will be
long after I am gone.

You stay here,
I am going ahead.

(September 11, 2008)

BREATHE

2008-07-24T08:30:00.001+03:00

People and ideas sometimes have to be left
to the river and carried downstream.
Some we will see again, maybe.

In that river ink will flow on,
people will drink in ideas you thought
and create their own ideas—

and you will be connected with them
without ever seeing their faces
or hearing their voices.

What you did that others will not see
will stay hidden and quiet in you,
will be a piece of all your future prayers,

will maybe make you turn left
when you would have
otherwise turned right—

and you may never even fully realize it
until you are watching a replay of your entire life,
reaching for that great light—

like dreams that are potent just after you wake,
but find their quiet place in your memory—
guiding you silently without you even knowing it.

(July 24, 2008)

SIDE

2008-07-19T10:56:00.000+03:00

Tolstoy, they say, used to write
in the village square—the faces inspired him.
Here, at the coffee shop,
the faces chase away
what the air hopes we will find on it.

(July 19, 2008)

MISSING LINK

2008-07-19T10:55:00.000+03:00

Each page I turn is for that
missing link, not for
an already-thought idea.

When the shadows grow,
then it is time to move on.

(July 19, 2008)

CERTITUDE.

2008-07-19T10:53:00.003+03:00

I
Most mornings I set out after dawn, not sure where to go,
but hopeful that the voice of God and I
will cross paths—that my own road to Perdition will
remain hidden. The wind blows in my ears,
deafening me a little from the world, I learn to accept it.

Beside the silent lake I catch my breath—
close my eyes and they’ll all be gone.

II
I only see the living in my dreams:
African faces, far-away sisters, my hand held
in another’s—the still trees say,
“We know what is in your heart”—better than I do.
When I wake, the meaning of the world is lost.

III
Beside the silent lake I catch my breath—
I will try to help you through.

I am wiping the sand away,
some day I will understand it all.

What is in my hands does not belong to me.

(July 19, 2008)

LISTENING

2008-07-16T08:30:00.000+03:00

My father has difficulty hearing things intended for him
that come in on the wind, much less the gentle sounds
of the wild summer night—a world we rarely go into
once we’re past childhood.

I receive reports from abroad—are those
tears, though not false, really real—
to me?

I like to think there are always possibilities.

(July 16, 2008)

A PICTURE

2008-07-14T07:49:00.000+03:00

Most of the voices we hear are of people
we don’t know. But they’re in our homes,
in the living rooms or bedrooms, talking
to us, showing us the better life. Of course, it’s not
perfect, but the pros outweigh the cons—
walks on the beach, a small empire,
a happy sex life.

It’s better to know these people when you can’t
understand the language—when you don’t have
that better life.

(July 14, 2008)

GROWING UP

2008-07-07T11:22:00.002+03:00

A separation may happen, a
permanent divergence. God’s great silence
is encouraging.

We’ll never know
if something good would have come from this,
or if it is better not to uncover so much hurt.

(July 7, 2008)

MIWOK: THE FIRST PEOPLE

2008-07-07T11:22:00.001+03:00

We pass thru this park every day, where
submissive rain dances were performed.
We learned about history.

There is a sense of ownership—
the creek can’t remember
the prayer it was always offering, the trees are still.

Something will come.
Something will come.

Local traditions have little inspiration
anymore, their light is fading from the world.
People are out there, waiting.

Something will come.
Something will come.

(July 7, 2008)

CONFLUENCE

2008-07-06T08:10:00.000+03:00

There is a large wall today, but I
can still feel the rain—
a plea from the heavens.

There is a lot of time between the mornings
when we leave our bodies to the flames—
a search for freedom.

Every day is our battle cry of the heroes,
with stones flung in our faces—
a river in the distance.

The air around the golden dome has come
all this way to find me—
I hope it feels my gratitude when I breathe it in.

(July 6, 2008)

I’M GOING HOME TODAY

2008-06-18T11:43:00.000+03:00

The hills are dry, they lost their color
early this year; and the water level
of the lake just outside of town is slowly dropping.
Will the history that pulsates through us
one day be lost?

I hope there are more true friends
out there, for us all, but especially for you.
I’m going home today, that’s all I know.
It’s different for everyone.
Can we still find our way back?

We made it through
the river’s drops, with little left of our
battered raft. And it’s hard now to say goodbye,
with the battle still somewhere off in the distance.
What will we find once we get there?

More letters from places far away reach me
than letters from home, I hope these faces
never get lost in my mind.
Will I forget what it was like to be out in the cold
if I can’t hear my voice?

(June 18, 2008)

A CHALLENGE TO MYSELF TODAY

2008-06-17T08:33:00.001+03:00

The sunrise is more enjoyable
without the dark things
people say, when it is the link
between you and friends that are far away.

(June 16, 2008)

A LONG TIME AGO

2008-06-17T08:32:00.001+03:00

Some people
we don’t know how to understand; they’re all
crowded outside the window
and your door. But the book today
still has a more welcome opening,
as I predicted.

It’s hard, sometimes. And lonely—
how we still hang around here,
with no strings to hold us
in place, just because it’s familiar.

Take a few steps back, and everything
is still out in the distance—the strong memories,
a twisted line, stopped clocks, the sun moving
towards the horizon. There is still laughter
in the air, maybe one of the only things left.

Things can get better, we can grow
stronger. And it can all go back
to the way it was, asking, “What should we do now?”
And there will be more silence, but uneffective
silence, the kind we usually have
when we don’t know what to do anymore.
We can leave it up to the tide, and we usually do
because it’s easier that way; maybe the pain
won’t come back.

And still, you find a way
for your breathing to fall into rhythm
with the earth’s. One day,
we won’t live here anymore.

(June 15, 2008)

MORE LETTERS FROM HOME

2008-01-04T21:59:00.000+02:00

It has been a long time since I have held
the earth in my hand, it being harder
for my feet to find the rhythm of a far-away place
as time goes on. I’m alone all of the way.

And peoples’ understanding is shaken
when they learn that there is a future, that the past
can’t simply be thought of as some safari,
an adventure before we return
to settling the dust.

(January 4, 2008)

I HAD RECENTLY HELD A BABY IN MY ARMS

2008-01-04T21:58:00.000+02:00

Seeing a mother on the television
holding her infant, I lean forward in my chair,
remembering that I had recently held a baby in my arms—
and feeling washed clean by a rain.
It’s like one jewel from a chest
hidden in the depths of the old sea has floated anonymously
to the surface.

Sitting back in my chair, awake, I felt how alone I was,
sensing how much more vast the night desert is
than I remember—and that, right now,
I can’t go any farther than this.

(January 4, 2008)

REDEMPTION DOWN THAT DARK CORRIDOR

2007-12-12T06:46:00.001+02:00

A silent wrecking ball
in one hand, a prayer in the other; they’re raising
your body from the ground.

The golden thread
splits off in two directions,
with a discovery, a lesson
along the way, calling.

Is there redemption down that dark corridor,
for me or you, where your plane has already
fallen out of the sky and you’re struggling
just to keep your head above water,
where there are many a fist to the face?

Is there a real life down that bright passageway,
where people, old and new faces, are awaiting
your arrival, where a ship sits passively
out in the distance, hoping for its call into the harbor?

Some days, it’s the way
that makes the world a little less alien,
a little less lost, a little less far away.

(December 5, 2007)

DESTROYER

2007-11-26T18:05:00.001+02:00

We’re waiting for the address
to begin, most of us have
an idea of what to expect—a call to the ark.
That’s why we’re here.

Behind me are voices I know,
calling to perdition. And the person
holding tightly my hand
stands at the nexus of light and dark.
What will be her fate?

(November 26, 2007)

FROM THE GROUND UP

2007-11-26T18:04:00.002+02:00

After dinner and dishes, you read,
to salvage something out of the day.
These are places and customs that will always
be there, no matter how much you try
to wish them away. They breathe as you breathe.

Today I stood alone among things
I don’t know anymore; “the future,” I said,
“the future.”

(November 24, 2007)

UNCERTAIN WEATHER

2007-11-22T08:20:00.000+02:00

It’s Thanksgiving Day today, my first here
in five years. We still have the same food—
a juicy turkey, homemade stuffing, candied yams,
warm apple pie straight out of the oven—but it’s not the picture
you see on TV commercials. We have our own
local color here, but that comes along
with dying traditions and a changing future. I don’t see
the same faces anymore, or as often. We’ll all be splintering off
into our own directions, crossing whatever borders
we need to cross—some telling the wind to follow them,
some letting the wind take them where it will.
And as a country, who knows how long these traditions will last
when our future really reveals itself.
One day, those TV commercials won’t be characteristic
of any home—even if we’re serving up plates with turkey
and potatoes and stuffing and yams,
followed by pie and coffee.

(November 22, 2007)

MIDDLE GROUND

2007-11-21T08:48:00.001+02:00

The walls are decorated with people,
but we only see the flaws. There must be
something wrong, even if we can’t see it right away.
That’s the talk that probably went on.

And a pattern develops, a loss
of middle ground in the space between
free expression and perfecting a craft—
our mutual lives are lost.

And what’s inside us may go to sleep for years,
decades even. If I only turn to create
a person of my own, I can already sense what will
be wrong with it, and I say, “Save it for another day.”

(November 21, 2007)

WHAT THE SUN’S LESSON IS

2007-11-14T05:54:00.000+02:00

I pierced the cloud today.
What the sun’s lesson is,
I don’t know. The world is calling!

(November 14, 2007)

BROKEN THINGS

2007-11-10T11:00:00.000+02:00

There is no more time to be wasted
on broken things. Most of what is sent
my way still takes me by surprise,
but I’m getting better
at seeing what’s broken
and what isn’t, knowing
when there is no one to pray
for your safe journey home.

Sometimes I lower my head
on my prayer book, just to remember
what it was once like
to lay it before God.

(November 10, 2007)

DOWN THE ROAD

2007-11-09T19:37:00.000+02:00

There is little air in the words
circling around me all the time—
some that drift through my head, some that
well up from my chest, some that dribble
out of my fingers. I guess that happens
when you don’t realize what has
built up around you, or what has appeared
while you were out.

The hills outside my window
are still there, with maybe only
a hiking trail or two
to indicate they’ve been touched by human life,
but they may as well be states away, or in some part
of the past that won’t return again
for decades.

(November 8, 2007)

A THOUSAND-MILE WALK

2007-11-06T04:08:00.000+02:00

Old sunny days
are good to remember, as a
compass to guide you
through the deep and winding forest,
but not to get lost in them.
Every morning
becomes a new way of learning—
a thousand-mile walk to shed old, tired skin.

Light in the sky is coming.

Sometimes you have to let go
of other people’s salvation.

(November 5, 2007)

DEEP IN THE MOTHERLOAD

2007-10-25T10:37:00.000+02:00

On some mornings it seems like
you have to prop the sun up in the sky
(distraction after distraction
keeps the darkness present), and when
you get it up there, its word of advice is,
“Please be patient
with your life,” and nothing else.

Even the immigrants and pilgrims
forget what it was like to be new. Settled in
to their new existence, it takes awhile for them
to see things the old way. And the natives still do things
the old way.

(October 25, 2007)

GLIMPSES

2007-10-24T17:53:00.000+02:00

It is a slow change. The little sorrows
hold your hand like a parent and child,
to always remind you of simple things
that get lost in the world.

You’re home finally, but your heart
won’t seem to chime in.

In the middle of the night, when we’re off
in other worlds, we try to turn off one light
and turn on another. There are times
when I don’t want to open my eyes, because the world
and the weight will be what I see.

It is not sad to think about
one day not living here anymore, people not wondering
who was here before them.

In the middle of the night,
my body—light as the spirit—floats high
above the sadness and fear. If only I could hold onto
those little glimpses and dreams,
until a little sunlight gets through.

(October 24, 2007)

EARLY ONE MORNING

2007-10-17T05:58:00.000+02:00

It’s more like a race to the dawn—to see if something—
another way, an alternative to what most
just accept as they only way, the only answer—
in these peaceful little hours of the day.
“Will I make in time?” you ask.
“Will I get there?” Some days, all of our steps
are for that race—every strike of the axe,
every swing of the pick or spade.
Even our tired, shallow breaths
at the end of a long day.

But there are other days
where only the sun finds us; at least we’re
not sleeping. The world always sends
some part of itself as its representative—the wind,
the cold, the rain—to let us know
what we’re looking for is out there, to tell us
when we don’t come across it,
“You’re getting closer. Tomorrow, maybe.”

(October 17, 2007)

BROKEN WINDOW

2007-10-04T15:25:00.000+02:00

Those old voices and memories lie quietly
in the past, there is no need for them
to be summoned. The night is here,
some trails grow cold
pretty fast. Sometimes it is better
not to turn back to the mapped out day,
but just take what you have with you.
There is another end
to this cold trail—no one knows
where it will come out—
and it counts for something.

(October 4, 2007)

LETTERS FROM HOME

2007-09-19T07:34:00.000+02:00

We all get on in our years, most things
I don’t miss. Sometimes we even forget
when it all happened, but I’ve watched others
go down their road. And later
we all walk together to the House of God
(there is always a chance to lend a hand,
to become a little smaller).
They still often pass by,
without saying, “I’m here.”

(September 19, 2007)

DOWN BELOW ME

2007-09-19T07:12:00.000+02:00

From this hill you can see
the city lights on the other side of the bay.
If only it was just water
separating us. But maybe the silent headlights
out on the interstate, on their way
to some destination, keep us linked.
And the moon, shining down on everything.

The light doesn’t seem to say,
“Yes, this way. Come, follow me.”
But there is silence in some places, saying
where not to go, even the still trees
outside my window listen to it.
And my feet won’t wear much memory
into this floor.

(September 17, 2007)

EVERYTHING IS GOOD AGAIN

2007-08-13T05:18:00.000+03:00

We flip through the pages
of this photo album, looking at these
neatly preserved, happy memories—
the smiles, the arms slung over the shoulders,
the light in the peoples’ eyes. They don’t tell
the full story, but they do recall those good days.
There were some bad ones too,
but only mental pictures for those, for our own recall.
They’re important too.

Even standing in the queue
on the threshold of a great change.
We all come to that point some day.
Sometimes we get to come back to the place
where these happy images appear, and everything
is good again, even when it wasn’t bad before.

Some have soft light, with one person,
someone would try to keep things quiet.
And whatever is taken out to sea
now belongs to it. When you put them all together
you can hear them say: “And there was a time
when you loved me. And there was a time
you loved me no more.”

(10 August 2007)

RELEVANCE

2007-06-23T11:53:00.000+03:00

What makes a dream a dream?
When does it come true? Our hearts
rest on these things,
this is where our pride comes from.
Even strong men shed tears.

There are many great men
with great messages, but how many of
these will pale in comparison
to those who will come later—
or even those whose voices are still rising?
How much of today
will remain unburied?
And how little do we expect it?

(21 June 2007)