Bright painting
of a deity,
offerings of simple food,
small change,
red candles
to coax peace and fortune
from wherever they shelter,
to feed them, light their way,
invite them to stay;

a space as gentle
as a cathedral
is smothering;
as open to living
as a cathedral is
closed to natural order;
as intimate
as a cathedral is
hugely impersonal.

Any process
once begun
urges its own
completion,
which is why we
are as far gone
as we are;

we’ve stood on all peaks,
braved all fires
and all manner of storms,
sailed into the moon
from the edge of the ocean,
addicted to going hard
and going far
in all we do; and so

we spiral
toward ashes below
still singing our own praises,
indifferent to how far
and how hard
we are falling.

life as
a flight from birth
to death? no.
take birth
and death 
as givens, as 
constants, not as
origin and destination.
instead,

life as a reed
bending to breeze and
eddy in shallow current.
life as slender
moment.  life as 
curve adapting, life as
hollow waiting to be filled,
life rooted in one place,
topping in another.

it’s no journey, really,
if there’s no way to understand
what was before and 
what will come after.

It’s uncomfortable 
some mornings
to be alive and hurting
with a broken belly full
of unloved 
but necessary
food.

If this is healthy eating,
give me a gut full of air
and call me ungrateful 
for my privilege and 
relative ease.  
Tell me again

how many go hungry,
tell me again
how my own illness
is self-inflicted,
tell me how glad
I should feel right now
to be alive and here
in this body,

and I will tell you
that shame and guilt
for feeling such anguish
when I should be above it all
are fueling
what’s inside

where pain’s pain,
death’s death, and 
all I want to do
is make a swift
common cause
with the worms
who do not care
who any of us are
as long as
soon enough,

we are theirs.

After the dinosaur, the flight, the bird.
After the Australopithecus, the slow beginning, the man.
In the first tentative feather, the albatross, the poem.
In the first chip of flint, the automobile, the rock and roll song.

I keep a jar of egg teeth, bone Venus idols, hollowed whetstones.
I shake it to time the march of progress.
It’s not an evolution unless something vanishes.
It’s not an evolution if no memory remains of the vanished.

I go sometimes
to the border
and look back to you,
to the place
I’m from,
the place
from which I’m exiled.

I want to hold your hands again.
I want to look you in the eye
and tell you I’m sorry,

for you’re lost
as I’m lost,

and I think we’d do well together,
my flooded,
impossible to drain,
tumbledown,
insolvent,
sunken-eyed, sullenly
beloved homeland.

All I wanted
was to love you, to put you
out of our shared misery,
but what I call love
you call treason;

if we can agree
that both are true,
how about
you let me come home
and prove the former
to you?

Sunrise rolls
across the earth

and every one of us
wakes up to a door
where there was none
when they went to sleep.
Even those who slept rough
find one planted
in the ground before them.
All doors in existence
before this morning
are locked tight.

Wow
comes the collective gust

from anyone not terrified
into silence; then
several hundred million
approach those doors
with a hand stretched out
at knob level.

Some
yet-uncounted number
are set upon
and dragged back
and some are beaten
and some are killed
by those scared
of this morning’s
unsolicited gifts;
then comes

wow,
again,
though
that
doesn’t explain
any of this
well enough
for the epic nature
of the day;

it’s still
a fruitless
wow

when
it’s almost
the next morning
and these doors
aren’t open
yet.

Before a hyacinth blooms
or tulips and daffodils
stick their commonplace faces
into the air,

spring shall be announced
in the impatience of housecats
who try to escape outdoors,
who succeed now and again,

who long to sit by the street
and imagine themselves
suddenly tiger
or lion.

For some
the process
of receiving
a tattoo
is a path
to peace
through pain

The ink 
and image 
left behind
are only
artifacts
of the journey

Recalling now
the pilgrimages
and trials of
saints

Contemplating
their relics and 
the cathedrals
raised around
those finger bones
those locks of hair

All that is
as human
as the etching of
pictures
of carp
and skulls
and flame
and names
we bear
on our arms

Applause
for a calm minister
who steps down
from her pulpit
and walks out
of the church
into the street
with only a banner
for a shield.

Kudos
for a wan doctor
who refuses
to treat a symptom any longer
and pickes up a gun,
thinking all the while
“first do no harm.”

Reverence
for a frightened cop
and a scared firefighter
lighting the wicks
on bottles of gasoline
which are then tossed
into the centers of
station
and firehouse.

Shouts for
a resigned brigade
who refuse to leave
their barracks
to respond
to all of these
when ordered.

You say
you want
a revolution? Remember
that it often comes
only when at last
the tools of power
turn upon power.

The dark drive home
alone, not quite sleepy
but filled with gratitude
that the ride is not longer;

drifting around the apartment
setting things to right,
restoring order that was upended
before leaving;

the exhale upon the couch,
releasing last tensions
before sleep — this day
was lived

toward this moment.
Toward eyes closing
glad of nothing urgent to do
upon waking. Toward peace.