Say A Prayer

Say a prayer for me because I struggle with myself.
Say a prayer for yourself because you too struggle.
Say a prayer for your neighbor because it's been hard
and her job may not be there tomorrow.
Say a prayer for your co-worker because
their brother is dying.
Say a prayer quietly.
Say a wordless prayer in your mind.
Say a prayer for everyone.
Say a prayer for no one.
Say a prayer if you carry the faith.
Say a prayer if you are faithless.
Say a prayer because it is the secret hope
that our hearts carry.
Say a prayer because there is always
something to be prayed for.
Say a prayer because life
is an unceasing place of hardship and joy.
Say a prayer because you live.
Say a prayer because you are dying.
Say a prayer because you will one day
be among the dead.
Say a prayer and expect nothing.
Say a prayer because it's not what you would do.
Say a prayer because someone is listening.
Say a prayer because that someone is you.
Say a prayer because you'll ask a God
you don't believe in to be kind and merciful
to someone you love.
Say a prayer because you will know loss
and curse the idea of any kind of creator.
Say a prayer because you create
the world you wish to see.
Say a prayer for your siblings
and the ways you do not know each other.
Say a prayer because our infirmities
can only grow from here.
Say a prayer for peace.
Say a prayer that perhaps we will act
against the tide of history.
Say a prayer for our city, our state,
our country, our world.
Say a prayer because we are all we have
and this is the only home we'll know.

Why must our contentment 
be measured against
what we do not yet possess?

I dwell in the possibilities of my heart 
and yours

I cannot know
the current of your desire

though

I hope that our streams
may cross

Do streams cross
and empty into the salty sea

or do they run parallel 
like lines destined

to never intersect

There is no silence
merely an absence of sound

fingers of winter
a chill running through my neck
this land barren white

From the ashes of myself

I arise

This morning light

How many more will I see?

Ignorance is no longer enough of a reason to keep an ill-informed opinion silent.

Fear is a predator lurking within us all.

For Now

I woke up and realized
everything is not as it should be.

I asked myself "When have things
been as they should?"

Perhaps the warm pancakes
at the diner a city over,

but that doesn't really count.

Everything could be
as it is meant to be, though,

our hearts may feel otherwise.

Memory is a reincarnation of the past. 

Known quantities in the unknown universe.

We could have had something more

but we did nothing

and that was that.

To define something is 
                      to
contain it,
                      to
diminish it.

Is not every age beautiful?

Don't let the snakes back into your heart

Love is crazy and so am I
I think we'll be good for each other

Invisible History

Unseen and unremarked upon
most matters of importance
pass with little to no recognition.
The ends of relationships,
moves across the country,
a new lover, the realization
of the truly finite nature
of a human life time,
and other events so common
as to hardly be seen
as anything but mundane.
This is where most of life
is spent, where we dream
and scheme for betterment,
and hope of even the smallest
kind. This life is unremarkable
except that it belongs to me.
Your life is unremarkable
except that it belongs to you.
This is no grand statement
of intent or purpose, nor is it
a warning of any kind.
Finish this page. Look away.
Walk into the next room,
go down the hall, find the door
and go outside. You are ready.
Believe me.

If we are not in 
the process of changing
is it not safe to say
one has died?

What will you do with your fleeting beauty?

morning tides

recurring thoughts

                              waves upon sand

salinity rendering water unfit for drinking

vast expanse of tidal blue

                                         a canvas for 

imagination

this morning 

I cannot separate my thoughts

from water

                  what tide is welling within

when will it strike

the shore

the moon silently exerting herself

A life of dreaming is not a life wasted
as much as a multiple of lives lived.

When I forget myself 
I am at peace
When I am at peace
I am myself

Kiss me beneathe the tree 
under which I heard you sing.

Idle Moments

If we cannot let our minds wander idly

from time to time

what will become of our souls?

Souls are another discussion 

that would fill 

pages and pages of support and rebuttals.

Let it be said

that there is an intrinsic part of our being

that is beyond mere corporeal form. 

We must be free to wander and wonder

or we will die as inevitably

as a cut rose placed in a glass bottle. 

There is a dead rose next to me

with it's head bowed.

I can remember 

the fragrant smell

of it's smile.

We live only for one season.

Visualize

If I told you the grass is dying
what would you see?

If I said love has died
what scene would you imagine?

If I said I have been born again
what could you see in my heart?

If I look in the mirror
I see a man much like myself

one who appears lost
and found 

one who seems to understand
as much as he does not know

I was not wise in my youth
and as I grow gray
I wonder if I am growing
any wiser now.

Unremarkable

My birth was unremarkable
except for the fact I was born
with wings.
Perfectly formed, angelic
in every classical sense.
As I grew, they grew with me.
During adolescence
I gained enough strength
to be able to outstretch them
to their full expanse.
My parents were enthralled,
standing before me,
my wings in feathered white.
I could see tears
fall down the cheeks
of my Mother, my Father
was rapt in his attention.
I bowed my head
and my face flushed red
in embarrassment.
I arched my wings behind me
and let them flap forward
twice, not enough to gain
clearance from the Earth,
but enough to billow wind.
I thought of my childhood
and the embarrassment
of being found out
by other children,
inevitably leading
to showing my wings
to those who could
see, but not comprehend me.
I could no longer hide,
I had to show the world
my true self
even as I struggled
to understand myself.
Doctors were confounded
by me, almost as much
as I was. Theories were
posited, pictures published
in peer reviewed journals
theorizing on the necessary
musculature to make
the impossible possible.
I was always terrified
to attempt flight.
When my Father died
I grieved
and let sorrow fill me
until I was a well
overflowing
with the uncontainable tides.
My Mother cried into my chest
until she could no longer cry
and I held her until
I could no longer hold her.
When she submitted
to a grief filled slumber
I walked outside
to the tree where
my Father would push me
on the swing he made.
I sat until I could no longer sit
and stood beneathe
the beautiful white face
beaming upon me.
My wings stretched out
and grasped the wind.
I could feel them beating
and beating until
at last
the ground became
the world beneathe me
as I soared above it
as Icarus dreamed
but could not realize.
I kissed the moon
and came back home
to the grief
that was waiting.

Three Thoughts

I.
She is peaceful when she sleeps
I walk away
as quietly as my feet will allow
and let her dream

II.
the breeze swept through the leaves
and rain began to fall

III.
I bristle against my own inadequacies

Morning Greetings

The heavy chunk filled sounds of a jack
hammer
              pounding
                   side
                  walk
                   into
                   frag
                  ments

unrecognizable
as a thing that was once ordered

I hear the infant cry

She must be hungry

I am still sleepy

I get up anyhow

I can ignore the jack hammer

forever

but she must be attended to

and then

we'll both be happier

than we had before

The voice will emerge if the mind is opened.

season without end
patiently waiting for rain 
gray clouds gathering

There is no beauty in cleverness 
that does not enthrall

The End of Fecundity

Soil dried to dust 

Scattered by wind

Red handkerchief tied 
About your nose and mouth

Clouded air swirls like 
Dervishes around you

You walk towards the cabin

In the distance  

Barren arms of a tree

Skeletal roots
Drying out in the sun

Standing in the doorway

Watching emptiness
consume everything

Season of dust

Wake before the sun
You cry to fill simple needs
Warm milk quiets cries

My hands do not know
The master for whom they speak
Many living eyes

Nameless together
Bound by no human language
Speak without your tongue

What keeps you waiting
Don't plan on eternal life
Act eternal now

In passing moonlight
Memory is forgetful
Beautiful jade eyes

Everything has passed
Everything is passing still
Even stone erodes