Always Stay Rooted Somewhere

How do they do it?

The people who live a lifetime
in one place. . .how do they not go crazy
only smelling the soil of one field,

the sounds of the voices of neighbors who have known them
since they were babies, or before.

I have traveled around the world,
happily tasting the food and loving the feel of the air
in France and other exotic wines.

How do they do it?

So loyal to their land,
they carry fuzzy plants from home
in the soil of the place they were born.

My roots are so fragile
from all the ways earth moves.
From the Philippines
to towns that don't sound like they look.

So many things don't look like they sound,
sweet until you try and grow.
Strong until you try and move them.

Always looking to be rooted
in some other field.

Sweetly Sung

The jagged curve
of memory is an invitation
to contract around all that has been.

Like stitches tucked neatly into a wound,
healing efficiently clarifying the edges of pain
where crisis was forcefully certain of the body.

We tick away like an exact clock
and forget that a metronome
is only a tool
to measure time.

The joy with which we answer the call
to play or to weep
is all a choice.


I will decorate my front door
with colorful boughs and ribbon
and the stars will fall like laughter
at a celebration we can all be glad to be part of.

Like candles, or flowers,
or a song sweetly sung.

Last Night's Wine

My joy is supple most mornings,
determined and purified by sleep.

Is is almost soul osmosis
that filters the sweetness of quiet dozing
with mindless breath and transforms worries
into variegated nothingness.

If I had an audience,
and propriety prevailed,
I might dance,
even flaunt,

the love that lives in me.

Right there.
Stepping lightly
on the sticky kitchen floor
where last night's wine

evaporated.

It Might Be Enough

It might be an understatement
to say that I can get discouraged,

down-hearted,

even disappointed,
in the fermented ways
we speak,

talking as if we might avenge our pride,

decorating our ego with jewels and gold leaf,
no more real than the truth
disguised in the fleece of a sheep
over the frame of a creature
with fangs and panting, heated breath.

It might be enough
to be a shepherd
on nights like this,

cold and wet soaking my skin,
mindless animals obeying with simple songs;
gently nudged toward new grass,

while all the while
Leonid flashes above me,
flying angels,
closer to earth,

calling to me in God's voice,
"Don't you dare give up."

Entanglement

My student speaks to me again,
a bearded priest, preaching
about the scary entanglement
of the universe,

all of our parts consuming each other
and then collapsing like a fire stoked high
and descending into glowing coals;

children at play and dancing
until the night and sleep presume
their humble roles, silence turned
with decisiveness under the covers.

I gird myself for all the ways
his knowledge and certainty will wound me.
His animal body alive and cringing
at the many losses he can already see.

We plant trees around the perimeter of the sacred space,
hoping this sister chant and all the mystical languages

will somehow protect us from the many nights
we will never know how to unbind ourselves.

Like All Other Blood

In every formula of human preening
there is a gravity point
where healing can happen,

where the premonition of a wound
bristles like the hair at the back of the neck
and we turn toward love

like all other blood,

like a child to a rain puddle,
a pen to the paper of a writer at first light,
like a dirty farmer returns to the fields each spring.

This constant exercise of the mind
trying to chronicle one kindness
in the face of so many injuries
is depleted.

Death by a thousand cuts;
the story no heart can hold
with arms too tired to embrace,

when will it all be over?