Our Song is individual
Our Song is varied
Our Song has different tunes
Our Song has multiple verses
Our Song has different meanings
But Our Refrain
OUR REFRAIN
is the same
We are walking each’s other Home
WE ARE WALKING EACH’S OTHER HOME
N E V E R
n e v e r
NEVERMORE TO BE EVER ALONE

Thoreau once said,
“IF YOU HAVE BUILT CASTLES IN THE AIR;
YOUR WORK NEED NOT BE LOST;
THAT IS WHERE THEY SHOULD BE.
NOW PUT THE FOUNDATION UNDER THEM.”

GIVE ME, GIVE ME, GIVE ME,

Eyes that see
what they don’t always notice

Ears that hear
what is not always said 

A Heart that beats 
for someone, something, other than me

Hands that extend 
not so much to receive as to give and comfort 

Paths that lead
to places I would never choose but need to be

Truths that I’ve refused to consider

Meaning to the seemingly meaninglessness 

Food that nourishes
more than just my body

Water that quenches 
all thirsts

Breaths that require
no air

Peace that banishes
all war, conflict, unrest
internal, external, eternal 

Unconditional love
without hints of the conditionals 

Diseases that 
lead to healings

Pockets full of change 
that are changeless

Time that never has to be traveled 
behind or ahead and appreciated for its 
eternal Now

Answers to all of the
why’s, what-for’s, how-come’s

Beginnings with no ends

Moments past Forever’s

Prayers that never need
praying only realizing

__________________because there are
endless__________________that’ll be innumerable

GIVE ME, GIVE ME, GIVE ME

Leaky Ink from a pen
Dull led from a pencil
Dirty computer keys tapped on
Until words appear 
Without much definition
And even less meaning 
Still tell a story
That can’t be read
That can’t be told 
That can’t be heard
That can’t be seen
That can only be experienced 
And is
Mostly without notice
Leaving us to question
WHAT JUST HAPPENED 
As we bemoan the agony of
Change
but embracing lovingly the
Q U E S T I O N I N G

Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,
Death’s great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?

By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies
glitter with new galaxies.

And the miraculous comes so close
to the ruined, dirty houses —
something not known to anyone at all,
but wild in our breast for centuries.

~ Anna Akhmatova ~

H U H
along with me. . .

May I live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.

JOHN O’DONOHUE

Excerpt from ‘Matins’ in his books, Benedictus (Europe) /
To Bless the Space Between Us (US)

Stained for good

Jagged uneven pieces
Discarded for garbage
Hardly pieces of art
Until the Light

Explodes me instantaneously
To a panoramic brilliance of beams
That eyes can only merely see
But souls understand
experience         
Creating me
STAINED FOR GOOD
Assuring
that even a space
that once held a tinged altarpiece
still lets in Light

I’ve always thought that
THE HOLY
was never a Place
so much as
A PERSON
and more intimately. . .
Y O U
and from that came
THIS:

I went to Church
it wasn’t Church-ing

I went to the Playground
it was no longer a ground for play

I went to the Movies
they weren’t movie-ing

I went to the Show
it wasn’t showing
I went to the Concert Hall
it had been silently hall’ed away
I went to the Park
it was prohibitedly parked

I went to the Mall
it had indefinitely been mall’ed shut
I went to the Store
it had been mostly stored away
I went Home
it had been homed sheltered up
and though familiar 
so utterly unrecognizable 
and then
Then I journeyed in
to a cavern
to a nook
to a creaky cranny 
I seldom visit
And there
t h e r e
was the holy
an altar not often knelt before
a communion rarely shared
a hymn not yet sung
a litany never recited
a homily vaguely strange
(maybe imagined)
a benediction
challenging to go forth
and make a difference 
while urging me to stay
and know a sacred distinction
May be
(be it may)
that what’s Holy
is THAT which is
WHOLLY 
ME
Perfectly Imperfect
ME
Ahhhhhhhhhhh
Christmas, Easter, New Year’s Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Eid Al-Fitr, Eid Al-Adha, Diwali, Holi, Vesak, Parinirvana Day, Chinese New Year’s
At Once
Wholly
Holy
In Me

“later that night 
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered 
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.”

Warsan Shire

When
W O R D S
find me
in the form of a poem
they often
e v o k e
my words to form
a poem:

This Body 
has laid in a crib
placed there by loving hands

This Body
has laid in a field
looking up at cloud formations 
the rising
the setting sun
and the stars that have poked holes
in the black velvet curtain of night

This Body
has laid in sand
having the sun seep into its pores
while the ocean has baptized it

This Body
has laid in a bed
companioned by a love
never to be fully described 
but intimately known

This Body
has been on a gurney of pain
not to so much experience Cure
as to have a certain healing

This Body
will lay in the ground
It’s ashes swallowed up 
not to be forgotten 
but to begin again 
in a new way
to lay again

“ Hope”

It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
it shakes sleep from its eyes
and drops from mushroom gills,
it explodes in the starry heads
of dandelions turned sages,
it sticks to the wings of green angels
that sail from the tops of maples.

It sprouts in each occluded eye
of the many-eyed potato,
it lives in each earthworm segment
surviving cruelty,
it is the motion that runs
from the eyes to the tail of a dog,
it is the mouth that inflates the lungs
of the child that has just been born.

It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.
“Hope” by Lisel Mueller from Alive Together. © Louisiana State University Press, 1996.

I learned early on
that the vulnerability of
putting words on a page
. . .even if that page
is crumbled
is unlined
is torn
is just-in-time-saved
from the bottom of a dirty waste paper can
is not just merely
p o e t r y
but . .
H O P E
at its best
. . .even if it’s just because of the vast amount of critics
WE ARE ALL POETS

No blank page is ever really needed
to write a poem
. . .P O E T R Y
begats
P O E T R Y
. . .hence:

A Voice
not heard
A Scent
not smelled
A Beauty
not seen
A Delicacy
not tasted
A Touch
not felt
An Intuition
not realized
And for all of the 
jumbled
tumbled
tangled
N O T S
The holy common
Y  E  T
is
unexplainably still
e x p e r i e n c e d
h o p e

H O P E
. . .it is in the poem trying to speak

ONCE they held
Whatever was deemed
Important
Significant
Sacred

NOW they are emptied

THEY worlded Memories
of what Was
But More
What Hallowedly WAS
THE WAS

Can’t ever be fully photographed
and yet
never has to be
FULL HEARTED GRATEFUL
What never has to be

Empty Shelves
are never fully empty
and what habitats them
can’t be seen
so much as
f e l t
for an ever

This is a poem I wrote after a day that felt like a month that can’t be found on a calendar; a day that makes you want to become a skilled magician so you can slight-of-the-hand-blink-of-the-eye-quick-vanish without so much as reflection from a dirty mirror or a wisp of lingering smoke. . .

But here’s the best thing about day’s that feel like months not found on any calendars:

THEY END

and what they take from you
compares not what they gift you:

S T R E N G T H

A detour
sometimes masks itself as a
short cut
and always something more than just another
Way

The detour?
Compassion
The Short cut?
Giving it
The Way?
More often than you have. . .

Talk about a wild ride on a dark night
(on a road that seemingly doesn’t exist)

Giddy Up

I love this poem by Warsan. . .

I’ve never heard of her before
let alone
R E A D H E R,

but it brings up a universal sad truth
in just one word:

E V E R Y W H E R E

Right now
at this very moment
think of the one person
in your life
who’s home has never known
loss
hurt
disappointment
grief
devastation
unmet expectation
d e f e a t. . .

Wait. . .
WHAT?
Is it
Y O U R ‘ S. . . ?

Behind every door is a pain so deep
it can’t be spoken. . .

Know that;
Know that you know That;
Bet Your Life That You Know THAT
but most of all
FOR THE LIFE OF YOU
A C T A S I F Y O U K N O W T H A T

The World is a raw
Opened Wound
That’s not so much seeking a Cure
b u t
H E A L I N G

. . .and we are carriers of it. . .

But more than Carriers
WE
desperately need to be
D E L I V E R E R S

E V E R Y W H E R E