How the Bird Catches the Worm

It happens every spring;

a sacred offering to the God of Winter 

who must surrender, 

eventually,

to Spring and the light

of a new moon.

The robins return with purpose.

Their red breasts blind with intuition.

They tilt their heads as if deep in thought,

waiting for the ground to tremble;

maybe even slightly quake,

brilliant divination beneath the skin of the earth

to find with that frisson of wisdom,

the worm,

slinking and submerged from the beak

and almost hidden

from the thrill of the hunt.

This Simple Prayer

Let me be tender tonight

and release my hold on the world

that cannot be held.

Let me surrender tonight

and let desire cry for my attention

in each sacred moment

of looking at the flames and confusion

and picking up words with gentle hands

to share in a poem like communion

 or a call from a beloved friend

that chants in earnest to God

and all the angels.

Let the subtle work of silence

consecrate my mind and lift my heavy heart

toward the most holy light we’ve ever seen

in the faces of the others around us

as we become family begging for more.

Let me place my hands palm to palm

resting on the edge of my bed,

quilt soft and colors fading,

and pray the prayers of a lonely child,

I will be sated with simple words

that tell of the truth of love that lives

in the eyes of a stranger

and in the songs of the children

I have always loved.

Who Would Have Expected?

Who would have expected

the essential would come to this;

the potent power of distance

to heal these vernal times

before the frost leaves the ground

beneath our feet?

In our grief of everything we have lost,

it is somehow too soon to reminisce

about the way we were before

the earth swooned with fever

and coughed herself

to nearly death.

Stand too close

and the heat of virus

will seep like and echo

weaving back and forth like a shuttle;

madness has you imagine the worst

of the stranger you’ve never met.

Stand back.

Stand away from the flames.

Don’t get too close.

Expect the unexpected.

Waiting For Love

In this respite of time,

a prayer answered,

I embrace the morning

where there is only the sound of small birds

and the flutter of the furnace

warming the air near the cat’s register.

She is only too happy to sit,

the heat blowing into her bones,

her soft greyness fluttering,

eyes nearly closed in delight

in that mechanical breeze.

My mind repeats the ricochet

of thoughts about silence and suffering;

a world full of isolation and fear.

I rummage around for courage,

capture my breath

in lungs that swell and fall

like the angry sea after a storm.

In the spaces between a moment

peace shimmers.

In this light

an angel swells,

divides like an embryo

in my unoccupied womb.

Here I am,

waiting for love

to tell me what to do next.