---

∴

give me a birch branch
to bare my teeth in
lest my bark become
a howling tonight.

my nature is railing
‘gainst confines set
by my negligent
abstraction of sight.

who is it to live
in cages, kenneled,
and whose mirth lies in waiting
and stagnant?

such fear fed boundaries,
invisible and sound,
are as sharp in stench
as hope is fragrant.

so pulse in me
courageous blood flowing
that standing,
i daringly stand as i’m made

and raise from my
voice a sound: free repose,
my debt to demure
is finally paid.

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

we can make cars
and bridges and roads.
we can make steels
that heat can’t erode.

we can make mountains
sculpted and tame.
we can make clones
and animate same.

we can make weapons
obliterate life.
we can make statements
incite us to strife.

we can make rights
from the wrongs that we do.
we can make punishments
others must rue.

we can make posts
and trailheads and tweets.
we can make cases
of hard-earned defeats.

 

but can we –

Lord please –

when will we –

make peace?

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

when silence unnaturally comes,
it’s as deaf’ning as drowning may be;
it is a swallowed and hollowed out sea.

 

there was a child here,
crying

not ages ago,

and now
there is nothing but me.

∴

 

 

 

---

 

---

∴

where stands the good soldier
when action is done?
when no one has lost
and still no one has won?

when truces have settled
a summarized score
and unwieldy warfare
is wanted no more?

where stands he whose hands
still hold up the steel?
whence comes the accord
that softer men feel?

ready are we
and straight up through the neck –
we tourniquet hearts
and orderly wrecks –

waiting for amnesty,
holding for peace,
that we might enjoy
should our battles cease.

∴

 

 

 

---

 

---

∴

could you take my hand?

while i try these new legs,
made for standing?

while i raise these new arms
meant for stretching
and whose reach
might reach
for good?

could you talk to my heart?

and whisper grains of courage
like microscopic seeds
that no one need see

for i promise,
i will feed them from good waters
and till the soil of me soundly.

could you watch?

while the tender and the tended
both grown and growing be
and see what fruits
are born thereon
and eat the yield with me?

∴

 

 

 

---

 

---

∴

it is a beauty in us all –
standing rare when standing tall.

austere by height
when height be taken;

when bound’ry grounding
glebe is shaken

from off the shoulders
that now bear weight

of knowledge gained
and soul filled state.

and void of vanity’s vacant sums,

free, and finally,

she becomes.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

and then
there are the mornings
you wake up
as listless
and unintelligent
as mediocre marmalade,
spread too thin
on thinner toast.

a harsh hour
is the dawn
accosted by artificial lights,
and heralded
by the cruel trumpet
of a bedside phone
on alert.

and then
you sit on the edge of your bed
and stare at your toes
that should be some other where,
before shooting them in
to the slippers
that dignify duty with sole.

and then
the day begins –
no matter the need to hold back time –
no matter the plea to pause –

up,

up,

and

then.

∴

 

 

---

---

∴

we do not go out
consciously
and into the world
seeking for our souls
as if they were wonders to discover
or bones buried in the dirt –

to uncover and construct –

to behold our immortal shape –

to finally see
what true form
we were meant to fill.

 

no, we do not set out on these journeys.

and we do not assemble these soul skeletons.

for they are not to be found abroad.

 

but rather
these shards of self
emerge
in piles of unfolded laundry
and are discovered
as they pop from dish tub bubbles
and ascend into our senses
like too familiar scents of a home
in which we’ve never lived.

 

perhaps then,
our treks into the wild
are embarked in dithered hopes
of finding all else
that would entertain
and divert
from the deeper travels
within.

∴

 

 

---

---

 

∴

 

i didn’t know what i was.

 

this is

the greatest folly of youth

i think:

 

to work furiously,

pushing pedals

and pumping sails

when our machines

were fueled by divine winds

all along.

 

if only we’d stopped straining

against the current.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

 

seventeen years ago,

before children were born
and parents were buried,

before mortgages and IRAs,

before jobs gained
and purposes lost,

before middle passages
and end of life fears,

before cancer,

before moves,

before expectations
hoped with hesitation,

before doubt,
before duty,

 

i sat at this table –
in this restaurant –
in time –

 

and told a man i loved him.

 

it was the first time
i said those words
in that way.

 

it is in the tracing
of these steps we’ve walked
and sitting at our tables, long past supped,
that i call upon what we’ve been.

that those old places
of memory and promise
might bear us on

to the places we will be.

 

∴

 

---