Daily Archives: December 8, 2015

This Has Been All

you have risen from
your accustomed seat
at the table

leaving behind
an empty bowl
once full of almonds
a few small scraps
of sharp cheese
on an antique plate
a drained glass of wine

you have left the room
and stepped
onto the porch
to watch moonrise
with new and old friends

turned from having
a simple dinner
into a life where simplicity
offers such complex chances
to glimpse the Divine

into the feeling
of satisfaction and joy
at having shared bread with others

and then under the full yellow disc
of the tide-drawing moon

to stand with them
arm hooked into arm
and shoulder
against shoulder

this night has been
a contained ecstasy
of perfected company
a peasant symphony played
behind the sharing of
almonds cheese and wine

this night has been all
a soul needs from its body

By Tony Brown

The school they put my father in
cut his hair and his ties

to his past, but that is not
what it was designed to do.

The school they put my father in
cut his tongue and his ties

to his language, but that is not
what it was designed to do.

The school they put my father in
cut his voice and his ties

to his family, but that is not
what it was designed to do.

The school they put my father in
cut his peace and his ties

to his god, but that is not
what it was designed to do.

Until you get to me and how loose
and lost I was and still am, how

untethered I am to any anchor
or ground, how much I yearn for

something binding me to something
that wouldn’t know me if I were to find it,

something that would brush me off as a poser
or a con and be half-right at least to do so;

not until you get to me and my angry peers —
half-present, half-past drifters —

do you see at last
what the school was designed to do.