---

 

∴

after all this time,

peace be with you.

 

after the things we’ve said
that cannot be unsaid,

peace be with you.

 

after all we’ve seen
and cannot strip from sight,

peace be with you.

 

after all the effort
that made the world to spin,

peace be with you.

 

after hurts have healed
with some wounds,
ever-open slice unsealed,

peace be with you.

 

after the history books
are writ and stored
and burned
and encased like myth
lodged in relentless memory,

peace be with you.

 

after the days would turn us
round and round
and against the other,

i shall stop the spinning,
the defensive vertigo,
ego-winning,
ceaseless, clutching, graceless waltz,

and bow
and step off this mad dance floor

and with sincerity of heart,
soundness of mind,
and a curious faith in foot forward,
turn toward door,

whispering through smiles
and inexplicable, too full tears,

 

peace be with you,

peace be
with you,

peace

be
with
you.

∴

 

---

 

---

 

∴

when i did not fight the water,
the boat began to rock

and the ravaging stopped.

 

when i did not quell the waves,
i rode them
as a bondless slave,

they,
rocking,
slaping,
overlapping,

became
the cadence
of current’s correcting course,

and with perfect,
arbitrary beats,
slid me out,
onto the sea

where the waters,
tacking violently,
did offer back to me

my fear.

 

come out,
come out,
and step upon these shoreless stones,
like whited alabaster,

moving,
moving,
endlessly,
buoyancy is faith unmastered.

 

when i did not fight the water
i met upon the salt,
all that is within me
and all that is without.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

look and see
how cool relieves
and blows in like mockery
after all that heat.

my skin still pricks
with remembrance.

it is not within
this new and temperate day
that i, forgetful,
dillusionally say,

“the storm?
it never came.”

 

for in that humid
and wind whipped place,
the shape of me
was forever changed
by the natural beating
of hurricane rain.

 

it came as death.

it came as life.

as one begets the other;

 

again and again,
in torrential resurrections
like the spinning
of spirited cyclones
on the sea.

 

this sea of self
that glassy stands
as though to invite
and welcome,

but deep and deep
and buried sands
do hold her pearls
for ransom.

 

the wealth of which
is haveble
if first we forego our strengths

and welcome
current,
capable,

who dousing,
drowning,
dolling,
rolling,

brings us deep
to find.

∴

 

 

 

---

---

 

∴

what if Narcissus had tripped
on his way
down to the pool?

what if his reverent kneel
became a cloddy plunge
into the shocking waters
of what reflections hide?

what if,
beneath that crystal cage,
he was undone
by water and wave,

and with silken garments soaked,
and with delicates disheveled,
he relished
in his disappeared
appearance

and swam broadly
as the being
he had been
masterfully meant

to be?

 

if i could re-write his story,

that’s how i’d do:

 

a boy,
splashing in the waters,
free at last.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

 

death is not a choice.

 

it comes to us all,
and sometimes
more than once in a lifetime.

 

it comes upon us
like a storm.

 

some deaths are worse than others.
some deaths are longer suffered,
and some are quick
and finite.

but even the metaphoric,
“in-life”
deaths
have an afterlife.

we wake into mornings after,
when the weaker trees
have been felled
and are still,

when the drip-drip-drip
of residual rain
falls into suspended pools,

when all sound seems caught,
as in a vacuum,

and even time
holds its breath
for our response.

 

it is in that bated place
that we will see small globes of light –
halos behind cloud-cover –
fainting and forming
like a shy dancer,
moving anyway.

 

then,
when words do not come,
and we stand in somber witness
of the damage
and in cessation’s thanks,

a bird may sing,
alight on the upright branches
of fallen trees,
peck at the bark
and preen her wing,

and we exhale.

 

Life therein
begins again.

 

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

i think it is true

that everything
you ever need

is

there,

if you know where to look.

 

i think it is also true

that the things
we’re looking for

are looking for us, too.

 

they’re like children,
lost at market,
and we, the parents,
are scanning
every aisle,
calling out their names,
wildly,
and sometimes
with desperate search.

but they –

those little beings
of our needing –

want us, too.

 

they may be hiding
under rotating racks
of women’s yoga pants

or behind
the banana seller’s stand
for protection,

 

but they

are

there.

 

and when we finally meet,
there will be
sighs of relief,
kisses
interlaced
with proper scoldings,
and perhaps a few
congratulatory onlookers.

 

but in the end,
i have found
that the missing bits
are only missing
because we know that they are there,
able to be discovered,
no matter
for how long
we search.

 

i have also found
that no matter
how much we find,
there is always more still
to uncover.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

∴

the good that returns
again and again
to a place

is a good that remains
in it’s absence.

 

it’s the soul of a sister

who –

though fleshly gone
held in time anon –

still lingers
like a cinnamon scented breeze.

 

and when you whistle for the wind
in late summer heats

you still know her
as she comes.

 

good

is knowable

like silence.

∴

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

 

i have heard it said,

“the mind is a garden.”

 

and it may well be.

 

though sometimes,

i think of it as

“the place i practice weeding.”

 

∴

 

 

 

---

 

---

 

∴

like banana peels
and clementine rinds
i will strip this surface off me,

for it is doused
with insecticides
that kill
and dangle
me loft’ly.

 

what sub skin lies
and under bricky bones
is His blood, my blood,
is ancient future home;

 

and there is a candle within.

 

that lights that walls,
and warms the heart,
and draws the wing’d ones near

to listen to the truer tales,
and sweeter songs to hear.

 

i will loose this door
that once before
was fortress buttress buckled,

and lace the hearth with lavender
and golden honeysuckle,

and lay aside
those peels and rinds
that to me,
overcoupled.

 

now naked stand
by grace, undamned,
with spirit,
strong and supple.

∴

 

---