past the
coughing windows with the
shades pulled up, inside the
people filled with love’s highest
longing, pitched broken English
to others on the sidewalk who
planned to spend the night chasing
hope to all the corners for the
sake of the bitter, the shivering, the
wretched, and overlooked poor.
Wait
on the corner I have a friend
who every day is troubled
by the silent birds with long
tails flicking on lamp posts
denying they are creatures of
sound. I thought his heart
would break waiting for them
to release a sweet song to help
him shatter all the time
he spends turning in circles
beneath city windows that
never open. the unknown
that swallows so many
yearly is always in front
of him but he tauntingly
waits for a sweet dream
to resist the morose world of
the walking dead. now and again,
he will stand on the corner
kneading bread with a big
smile that announces a perfect
hope is to him nearer, still.
The Well
by the ancestral well tucked
in the forest deep, that place
where the innocent were slain,
history shuffles toward truth.
birds above our heads today
sit on the wild branches of old,
speaking of the earliest cultures
now gone that we come to weep.
this well taught us how to live,
sing, dance, and mourn. With every
drink it gave the earth, the sky,
the sun, the moon became the sacred
world to us. Here awake this
night, we eat and drink beside it,
still.
Robin Williams
here lies another funnyman
in darkness making our hearts
skip knots. so many have
made meaning of life with you
filling their lines with laughter
never finished by any added
verse, but today we weep
memories that drown our hearts
thinking of you pale dead in
the lonely grave. we understand
little of death’s arrival, how it
dressed to meet you, why it came
with wordless shouting, or silently
knocking at your door. we will try
not to speak of sadness when the
wintering birds return soon to darken
the skies, gently bidding us to the
stillness of your passing. and, in fearful
journeys, swinging us toward darkness,
we shall do our best to see you still
giving us the gift of magnificent delight.
The Prayer
Lord, I pray this ordinary moment
reaches up to you and talks as I do
about these streets that know how
longing is really a heaven day with
no screams, or weeping, or freezing
hearts, or agonizing dread to steer
us away from your gaze. I hold
my head in my hand waiting now
for your warming Sun to cast its
yellow light across the avenue
that smells of peeled oranges and
talks to us beneath a singing sky
with birds in flight you made. Lord,
save us in your memory like water
in your hand that never spills, include
