2000

It is about lighting a fire the size of a flower pot
Big enough to warm a single room perhaps
A few cold fingers and toes now and then
And a frozen heart once in a blue moon!
If luck gives you a helping hand.

It is about being here in the true sense of the word
With the kind of unwavering attention
That does not leave a blade of grass unnoticed.

It is about taking the time to deliver a piece of cake
To a not so poor middle class family
Whose collective memory has been invaded
By tuition, rent, insurance, and antibiotics
And realizing that
Even pastry shops around the corner
Can be forgotten permanently.

It is not about disclosing the world poverty – though it
would be good if someone did!
Or battling hunger, disease, and ignorance
In those whose mass misery is a mirror –
in its horrendous clarity!
Reflecting the greed of a gluttonous few

Somethings are hard to acknowledge!

Tears are for those who are beyond hope to live
But anything short of stunned silence
Is disrespectful of he who has no place in which to die
Somethings are simply enormous!
For ants, mountains do not define the horizon.

It is not about heroes
Single acts of bravery raise too much dust

• Resulting poor visibility
• and all the cleaning to be done afterwards

It is about letting life flow through you
It is about letting life flow through you
With the kind of glow
The kind of fresh vibrant smile
That can only fit on a most ordinary face
The kind of shy unpretentious reaching out
That comes from living in a mass bigger than your own body.

It is about looking with intent.

May 21, 2000

I vibrate in harmony with another heartbeat, another life

Like the strings on my coffee-colored guitar

Visiting that “remote important region” listening to “that voice”

I know perfectly well “the kind of person you are”

The “darkness around” me melts with a single word

A tune, a cup of kindly-brewed coffee, a stretched hand

I won’t turn away from a heartbeat I recognize

That is the biggest of all “betrayal in the mind”

When “cruelty” touched me deep and I was falling

The playfulness of life kept my bruised feet on the road

Isn’t friendship the engine that keeps the parade running?

Perhaps I have more faith in elephants than does Mr. Stafford

I work hard on spelling “trust” in languages that I know

Friendship is for life, it can’t be otherwise

I say let’s hold on to poems as do elephants to each other’s tails

And not turn away from a heartbeat we recognize

If you don’t know the kind of person I am

and I don’t know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,

but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider–

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give–yes or no, or maybe–

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

May 5, 2000

A sluggish sleepy blue       

Hanging above the head

A dusty quiet gray

Lying beneath the feet

A gigantic, melting sun!

Pouring through the day

With an abundance of orange!

Quoting everything in its way

A glorious green descending

In a delirious summer dance!

May 14, 2000

Poetic!

Such rare fragrance in the air!

Such colors!

Such playful urge to write poetry!

This summer

Foreign words are blooming in my backyard!

May 5, 2000