Palms open to the sky

Grow without remorse from darkness!

Reach sunlight and make a fist!

Own your living power in your   

Olive branch and dance with the family

Tree! Relax the fist and offer palms open to the sky.

Justice by example: how youth learns about age

Justice by example: how youth learns about age

We have done a lot of thinking; 

yet still need to understand.

We have done a lot of speaking; 

yet words don't heal as planned.

We have done a lot of waiting; 

yet patience teaches still

and God goes on listening; 

yet do we what we will.

In some past perch we laughed

at her raking down below as God's whispers

caused her pile of leaves to go

in merciless spirals, dancing to and fro.

But now we send our wishes: her

toil to ease at last.

And look we up above 

and hear God's knowing laugh

just when a present from a dove

lands in our coffee: splash. 

Lines written while waiting for twenty-twenty to forget

 "Just drop the 'G,'

she said to me.

"It's broken, yes,

and I confess

we should have known

from Samuel's moan,

to dispose of the king

of our own making.

But, drop the 'G,'

for the community

is in ruins

over results due in

shortly. In kingdom, come!

Drop the 'G'. Bid kin come home."

Tony's birthday waltz

 Speed is no indication of success. Just ask my friend, Tony,

A horseshoe crab. But do not expect words in response.

Let his wading waltz against toxic tides for near half an eon

Answer. Better to ask how he acclimates to the virus du jour.

Maybe it's his blue blood, or just immunity without impunity,

Arthropod (not crustacean) though he is.

No, he's not interested in the naming of the parts;

Dying (as most of us are) to be understood

Eternally and not just anthropomorphized as i do.

Regal in his own right, and more happy in the dance,

Slow and sure and not self conscious.

Irony in a shell helmet: Tony is the meek who will inherit.

Now my blank verse ebbs without ado to the

King Crab or Sand Sage (names more apt perhaps for one of Tony's lineage.)

 

Almost a Haiku

It was no error

my deceased brother-in-faith’s

poem was not haiku.

See for yourself:

Blue Heron

By Robert C. Goodrich, Jr.

Chameleon Bird

Brilliant, Dusky, Grey Blue

Delicate, Deadly, Dancer Bird

You see? It only

shows how form cannot hold

spirit transforming.

Just as I cannot

hold his turning page forever:

still as it takes flight.

June 15, 2020

Miracle

Suddenly, it filled me and took my shape.

Watching the stream i understood the spirit of it:

The water rushing toward stillness buoyed me in the moment.

Spilling effortlessly into eternity; raising its clarity.

This crystal oasis transforms the desert of sunlight:

bending it to a will not its own. i can see myself
in it; (not just 60 percent, but all).
Life abides
in each
drop.
Tears.
Rain.
Joy.
Grief.
Still,
with thanks i lift the wine of it and sip.

4-20-2020

God's Rose

4/20/2020

Written after reading an article about the orbit of the star s2 around the massive black hole Sagittarius A.

For Helen. Thank you for lighting my way for thirty years.

It was an elementary fascination of mine

One that circled many times with overlays

Of ellipses using a pen and plastic gear.

Later in my life, a moebius strip would challenge 

My lack of artistic talent to the point of no return.

Then, today, i read of a star that (over the past thirty

Years) scientists have traced and discovered its

Lines form a rosette around this sagittarian pit,

clover maze-like (over time) around that dark sun

Near our galactic center. Is this flower up above

Stonehenge mirrored? And what strange, unseen satyr’s

Sauterne accompanies God’s gift to us. This thought takes me aback:

Hurtling me through a time portal to your birth again

Starlit in my darkness, you began your orbit against all my fears.