November Tuesday

It feels like church: sacred, moving.
Gathering at the temple/precinct with my neighbors
I say hello to the greeter, am known, identified.
I receive my order of service, the ovals to fill in.
My neighbors and I come here because we, the people, have work to do.
This is our liturgy, “the work of the people.”

Many of us have studied the scripture
The lectionary prescribes:
Press articles, candidate records and statements.
We are ready for worship.

I enter the confessional booth,
Put down the paper,
Bring my palms together,
Breathe,
Feel the touch of god.

I am aware of my expansive vastness,
My tiny smallness,
And the sacrament before me,
This paper wafer transubstantiated body politic of christ,
This marker-ink wine, the black blood of the people, chosen, choosing.

I know the math.
The chance I’ll die in a traffic accident driving to the polls
is hundreds of times greater
than the chance any candidate I vote for will win by one vote.
Determining an outcome cannot be the reason to take this communion.
A vote is a prayer.

I cast my ballot bread crumb upon the waters,
Causing no one’s victory or defeat,
Joining with something larger,
Participating in the infinity of history,
Lifted out of myself into the shared soul of
Millions of voters,
Billions of humans on the planet,
All life that ever was or ever will be.
World without end amen.
Amen.

Originally: Gainesville, FL, 2008.11.16
Tweaked a bit and numbers updated, every couple years, 2008-2020

Exactly

A patient on an addiction-recovery ward asked the chaplain, “How can my family ever trust me?”
“Exactly,” replied the chaplain. - Marion Thullbery’s dissertation

I sat up in bed, said,
God, I disappoint.
Ticking clock answered: Ex-act-ly.

Stood at the window to the dark outside. Said,
God, I'm still gone so much.
Nearly-full moon, setting, said: Just so.

Blearied to the kitchen, rattled coffee makings. Said,
God, the Earth groans, and I consume so much.
Faucet gushed: Yesss.

Stood on the driveway, hesitating to bend for the paper. Said,
God, this war, my government's corruption, my country's coldness to the poor or anyone who needs healthcare, its mania for wealth and stuff; and, God, I spent most of yesterday, same as the day before, forgetful that I am enough.
The newspaper shuffled: About that first bit, right on.
Then, probably around the obit page, whispered: Yes to the second bit too.

The wind blew through the trees,
and I heard the morning birds.

Gainesville, 2008.08.07

For Morris

97 percent of a century
and an equal percent pure.
97 years old
97 years young
97 years thin
and tall so tall.

This man,
This tough string,
This class of ‘33 Yalie
Rotsee’d himself just to ride the horses
he loved.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.

Pulled willy-nilly, like the world, into war:
Dubya Dubya Two,
This lanky port engineer
Saw such action as Boston afforded.
Then, later, Korea.
This man, too gentle-hearted for the body bags
Of death piled so high, by the hundreds.
This resilient gristle of a man too decent not to be overwhelmed.

This music-lover
Selling tuxes to dapper musicians
Dancing to their music
Clip-clop, be-bop, da-da, da-dum

God said:
“Morris, people should not be wearing body bags.
I mean for people to wear fancy duds –
Threads with life in ‘em.”
This slim haberdasher – he served his God.
97 percent of the time, or thereabouts,
He served his God.

Gainesville, 2008.06.12

Lines at Spring Sesshin 2006

Seasons

Ecclesiastes was Shakyamuni's book too
All those seasons -- be born, die, plant, pluck up, kill, heal,
break down, build up, weep, laugh, mourn, dance,
throw away, gather, embrace, refrain, seek, lose, keep,
tear, sew, keep silence, speak, love, hate, make war,
make peace.
The seasons preach one thing.
Quite a list, this one-item preaching.
Now preach!

Dallas, 2006.05

Snow in a Silver Bowl

That summer when I had but 20 winters:
snow in a silver bowl.
My senescence to come:
snow in a silver bowl.
When intellect's blade was sharp and swung so careless-quick.
When wisdom slows, takes skillful aim
Each is snow. Each the other's bowl of silver, silver.
Silver: the excellent conductor
Of heat
And cold.

Dallas, 2006.05

I Am a Stick

I am a stick
I've lain on the ground beneath the
tree I came from
For a year.
Before, I spouted leaves,
the little leaping greelies
Took in the light, the sun
Synthesized it.
I held up leaves
And bore their energy back to the trunk
that still lives.

Dallas, 2006.05

Lines at Rohatsu Sesshin 2005

It's always right there.
How silly to have built all these monasteries and all these busy fretting monks
Trying to find their mind.
Nothing to find but searching itself.
Do you find searching, or do searching?
If you find it, be sure to put it back.
Quietly ticking over in a metaphysical sort of way.

* * *
We need differentiation, even as we see through it.
We are full up of emptiness, and also must see through that.
From differentiation see through to emptiness and farther through to differentiation again.
Always come back to the fact
Not its meaning
The meaningless fact is all.

* * *
A stick is not a stick
When it is just a stick
In the dawning light
The call to breakfast.

* * *
The wild bird settles on her nest
And feeds down the gullets of her young:
What you have is given
And lackingness itself is taken away.

* * *
With information ethical particular and logical
And comment that is moral less so than it's ontological
I am injunctured not to do what anyways impossible
Aren't we the very models of some modern Major Zenerals?

Dallas, 2005.12

Dwell in an Artist's House

“Let the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us, and the work of our hands,
establish beyond us; yes, establish the work of our hands"
--Psalm 90

Live in an artist’s house for a time
If you can
Dwell among the strange ceramic on display
in small groups and singly in each conceivable nook
they spot you at every turn
textures remind you of a dim possibility
shapes sing a Psalm of hands
colors give your eyeballs breath.

Yes, live in an artist’s house for a spell
If you get the chance
Gaze over the books on the artist’s shelves
take in these shapes and titles
the thick ones and the thin
the smell of their unsettled settledness
the scope of restless interests
Someone here has wanted to know everything, everything important,
And could not stay in one place too long.
Pull down a volume of poetry you never heard of,
with a style half-way between familiar and exotic
And limn the pages, a few each day,
Leaf through the art books, Gauguin, Wyeth
Let these be your companions for the week.

Live in an artist’s house a while
And on Sundays stroll down to the artist’s church
and take worship with the small besieged band of freethinkers
vaguely wishing they could believe more than they do in salvific things:
love, justice, redemption.

Feel the artist’s lifelong care, the slow-swift passing of his years, in the shape of his house,
Mold yourself to that shape
Sleep there with infected dreams
For a week or two at a time
And recurrently, if at all possible.

Dwell in an artist’s spare fecund space
And when you leave say, “Thanks again”
Surprised by how much you mean it.

Midland, TX, 2005.09

Gateless Gate #12

Always the Master calls
The voice of the green turtle,
Silence.
Always affirmation answers back, screaming yes
In every soundwave, every lightwave-photon, every particle's
Stillness, the origin of every vibration.
Silence calls. Heed!
Stillness answers. Heed!

Dallas, 2004.12.05

As Good

Shivering in the night
and in the fog of sleep, trying to find you,
And in my dreams make love to the warmth of you
beneath too-thin covers.

When the morning sun throws our bedframe pattern on the
wall,
Slowly, slowly descending as your blond and peaceful
Head
Dozes on my
Shoulder,
I know this chill has passed.

Soon I will put on my boots.
We will walk the stony upward path
To the dead hermit's abandoned house, and
say a prayer to his
God
and ours.
Then we'll visit Betty's sisters -- they
will bring us eggs and coffee.
It will be as good
As the morning sun that throws our bedframe pattern on the
wall.

El Paso, 2004.04.12

Eastertide

What resurrects save falling?
This rainy day in the desert
     Muffle-grey cat lies down on us.
And I am a rumpled lotus bud.
Opened enough to see a little.
     Down in the valley, those others live
     Up on the hillside, those others live
The poor, not like me, and the rich, not like me.
How can I tell them what matters to me?
How can I hear them, know them, be with them, when
     I am so different?
To ask the question is to begin to see the path
Like a rumpled lotus bud
Opened enough to see a little.

El Paso, 2004.04.11

Taken

The moon is almost full, I say.
She's about to say, No, just past full
When we turn down the last alley to home:
the darkest stretch
A furtive wispy motion, the shape of a sneer
Halts us dead or alive
The wild maw of someone else's escaped fantasy
Is ready to swallow us
In our own backyard alley.
It is seriously tempting, this lure to be
     taken in, taken to where
     there are no more arguments
     about the moon
     taken beyond this dangling dull familiarity
     simply taken.
And though she feels it too,
Our hands find each other.

El Paso, 2004.04.10

Gabriella

The book of wounds, where we inscribe all our hurts
She does soul-shifting into the bodies of her friends
Falling is the voice of the rain
Use broken things to see ourselves
The moons of insomnia
Days of the week are characters
And some of our energies are refrigerated
Paper boats floating on a dirty river, and the
Body parts of dolls.
Some poets, our dearest friends, die frailly.
The City of Rock Walls: El Paso.
That's Gabriella.

El Paso, 2004.04.10

First Anniversary of US Invasion of Iraq

Remember the springtime
     that always comes in every desert
The perennial grace of beauty
     as a bright blossom on a harsh hillside
     as a soldier of an occupying force
     pausing from duty
     crouching in some act of kindness
to a native child.

Remember the events unfolding one year ago
     Wanton death comes sometimes
     Vast destruction born of foolish pride,
          or fear
     Oceans of suffering washing the desert.

Remember everything in which you are in community
     which is to say everything
     is your community of memory and hope
So remember.
Remember
     what part of that community
     called our country
     unfolded in another part
     called Iraq
     one year ago.

Remember the springtime
     Wanton death comes sometimes.
     So does wanton life.

Though vast destruction and suffering is sometimes born of foolish pride
     or fear
Yet the springtime comes in every desert
A perennial grace of beauty
     as a bright orange blossom on a harsh hillside
     as a soldier...

Humanity may end war someday.
Not in my lifetime, or my children's, but
Maybe someday. I don't know.
In the meantime, I know what I remember.

El Paso, 2004.03.24

The Cycle of a Breath

Finally the sun comes up
Bright and glad
It will soon go --
and won't be gone long

Snow on the mountains
Gently melting to water
And more snow falling

The silk handkerchief
Pulled out through my nose
Cleans me out, wipes my window clear

The peace that flows through me flows
Through everything
It is only that
Only what is common as dirt
It is all of that
the everything itself
I can't help it.
The luminousness of objects is a mistake I made
An accident, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it,
I slipped, I stumbled, the sun

Was in my eyes.

I see my whole journey
A spinning bobbin.
Threads wind off, flying away
Pulling themselves loose and
Loosening the whole
While also threads wind on
become tighter wound.
It must be the mites:
Tiny, black, a few thousand programmed neurons
Mindlessly digging into the center
Inadvertently loosening it
So threads are thrown off
Even as the
Winding on winds on and on.

Albuquerque, 2004.02.27

Rocks and Leaves

The cool texture of granite
Moist. And so much green around.
I must be back east.
The forests of my childhood, with the large rocks I clambered on.
Once I was especially loving the stone and
my own boy energy carrying me over one,
then another in delighted
speed.
My grandmother was along, on this particular Appalachian excursion.
She waited with some patience for me to return to the trail
Until the patience ran out, as I'd been waiting for it to, and she hollered me
back.

She did love this earth -- whatever part of it she found herself living in.
The histories of its people, the feel of its rocks against the hand
and leaves between the fingers.

 Albuquerque, 2004.02.26

I Have Known Parrot Love

He was surely a part of the dance of your eyes
The first moment I looked into them
Not knowing what I was seeing.

The first time I visited you at your house
It was that place in Bellwood
You came to the door, opened it four inches
Your face in that narrow frame
Your blue eyes, glad to see me,
Glance askance, attending to another life,
You said, "Bird out."

Another time, another visit, you instructed,
"If he flies at you, go down."
He did, and I did:
Spread-conure on the floor.

With February snow lying white across our Minnesota yard
I phoned you at work where the others there heard you exclaim,
"He took a bath with you!"
So, yes.
I have known parrot love.

El Paso, 2003.10.24

Wednesday 9:23am

80 miles north of El Paso
on I-25 headed for Albuquerque
my bus pulls into a Border Patrol checkpoint.
Weekly, I participate in this ritual.
The green clad agent steps aboard.

"If you are a US citizen, state the city and state of your birth
If you are not, show your documentation."
As far as I can see, the green agent and I
are the only Anglos on this full bus.
Border Patrol makes her way down the aisle,
frowning at papers of widely varying size, shape, color,
sometimes also asking for separate ID, sometimes not.

My head bows under the world's weight upon this spot.
This posture cues me to whispered prayer.
"May there be an end to invidious distinctions
including those based on whether our mothers,
when we first peaked out from them into the world,
were north or south
of a line
a few politicians and generals drew
more than 150 years ago.
May I find ways to help bring
justice from my unjust privilege.
And blessed be all of us on this bus, including the Border Patrol agent,
as we all struggle to realize the fullness of our humanity."

She gets finally to me on the backmost seat.
This week no one has been hauled off.
I look up from clasped hands in lap
For a flicker our eyes meet.
My voice says, "Richmond, Virginia."
This only is asked of me, no papers, no ID.
Pale skin and the right sort of accent clinch it,
if I will but utter the name of a holy city

Virginia is much farther away than Mexico.
Of Richmond, I know nothing; we moved from there when I was two.
Doesn't matter.
What I'm saying with those two words is:
I am on your team, Agent Green Jump Suit.
Never mind Yahweh's call for a preferential option for the poor.
Never mind Buddha's call to live compassion rather than fear.
Never mind the unitarian commitment to the unity of us all or the universalist commitment to universal community.
"Richmond, Virginia," I say, like Peter saying, “I don’t know him.”
Peter denied his teacher, then saw in one dizzy flash what he had done, saw
What I also now see:
We who long to be merely good,
Are revealed, rotten with complicity with the empire.
The world’s brokenness and mine are one.

Between El Paso & Albuquerque, 2003.09

Sadlack's Heroes

On the corner
Where Hillsborough meets Enterprise Street,
Where perhaps we boldly go where we have not gone before,
An orange and blue sign, “Sadlack’s Heroes,”
Declares baldly,
We are sad, we lack,
And we are heroes – all there is of heroism, at any rate –
Despite our unhappy incompleteness, or because of.

I passed a dusty woman, and something brought me back again.
I spent a couple dollars on fries, blue cheese dressing on the side, and a diet coke for Caroline,
I spent a couple moments sitting on a rock wall by the sidewalk,
The evening traffic bustling by
The bicycle locked to a No Parking sign
Beneath the larger sign, Sadlack’s Heroes.

Caroline declined my offer to get a bagel,
Showing me the molars she said could not chew it.
Between bites of fries, she peeled off her left shoe and sock
Showing me the yellow and red reasons that it hurt so much to walk.

At last, the bicycle and I rolled away from Caroline,
And the sign of sadly lacking heroes.
Later, in my house, as I ready for bed,
Standing on pink feet, toothbrush in hand,
It occurs to me to that I might think I am so fortunate
Compared to Caroline.
It is clear that I am not.

Raleigh, 2002.06

A Bird in Boots

To carry such prodigious footwear
Her wings are very strong.
She is ready, just in case
Soaring ends and landing's hard.

Born of and borne by air,
The rain plays on her feathers happily as sunshine.
Through blue skies, grey clouds, and before rainbows,
she flies
As though she might be hiking the next moment,
if wings fail, or if she chooses.

Minneapolis, 2000 Fall

Wedding Poem

Our Whole Lives

I.
We said we would
Call the OWL:
March down the I'll,
Ring the bell and each other's
Fingers,
Vow ourselves into oblivion, wholeness, etc.
And die.

II.
The OWL has special wing feathers that quiet its flight,
So the prey never detects the predator.
One noiseless flap, two, and the small mammal is caught.
As out of the soul’s dark night, love is suddenly there, upon us:
Talons and beak.
We succumb,
And turn our bodies over to the nourishment of a grander thing.

2000 May, 2009 Apr