How It Might Look From Here

Exploring canyons of the brain
standing stunned at the top of
Peaceful Valley admiring the beauty
of the little river of thought wending
its way to the mouth of declarations
flooding and fertilizing the delta talk

Laying Fallow

Sometimes
words one does
not write are plowed back
into the brain in restrained hope that
there may be a more bountiful harvest next time

Playing on the Hills of Original Sin

Even as we terminal cases
arrive, we are naively
bedazzled by springs seen to be wet
with eternal hope. This may make our baggage

lighter, but only when hope
stays fresh. After all, nothing
ruins a good time
like soggy baggage, the sodden

mess we make of our
lives, pasted and glued and jerry-rigged, saved
occasionally as we are by discoveries,
the freshets of joy, trickling

nectar to the roots
of despair buried beneath
mounds of soil, detritus,
crawling scavengers

and laughing children
who will play on anything
so long as they and we
remain young enough to play, at all.

The Technology for Spanning Great Divides

Where is the lost and found
for voices? The cure for tangled
tongues? Courage for the defeated?
Inspired faith for the shrinking away?

Is there a vision of ourselves that
does not sing? A music that
does not rise and fall
and rise again? A longing that

does not broadcast truth?
Silence, freely chosen,
makes way for hearing
others speak, makes way for

the rustle of the world,
makes wavelengths of
skin and space around, this
silence chosen for its fullness,

but silence self-inflicted
flinching from wounds and blows,
hiding shrinking assets from
unrelenting claims, the isolate

poison with one remedy—
high notes and clear notes,
deep humming from the well
of self, the heart allowed to vibrate,

uttering prayers enough to flock,
celebrating small victories, risking
private passions, one human sending,
one receiving, now and again.