Because when the nightmoves against us, we dig inand take notice of our memories,those weightless shadows fallingon the fragile marsh.
George Cassidy Payne
Unsolicited Advice to the Class of 2020
Grip life the way a father holds his son’srib bone after a car bomb in a Baghdad market. Treat it with speechlessrespect. Awake each morning in its belly, licking the mucous from the rubberyintestine of your own ignorance. Chase life. As children run after dragonflies.Unlock the jar and hold it like a prisoner of evolution. […]
Chimps
Somedays I wake up and look into the mirror and ask myself if I am really human. I know that I speak. I know that I symbolize and wear the skin that has the blood of mammals pulsating through its veins. I know that I am not a fish or reptile. I do not have the stamina […]
Radiation from the Big Bang
Dear grandpa,I never met whopulled the trigger. They say that youhad enemies andit was the Depression, but who really knows?Your ashes were scatteredsomewhere in the valley and the records back thenwere never kept the way theyshould have been. Anyways, there is far too much chatterabout all of that now, in the background, as the evidence […]
Promise of Spring
My snow dirtied mind, squandered with rain and dirt,is ready. These ancient trails call my nameand I am ready. To be alone in a temple of deep space, my cardinal ears are ready. Where there is no religion but God and sun and land and the scent of boiled arrowroot,gathering on my neck and chest, I am ready.I am ready.
Sewn by Mom
Below the diamond shaped cloudsof a Tug Hill sunset, lying next to hisdog, with soft fingers asleep inside two heart shaped patches, where the moon barely creeps in and hissweet olive black eyes said goodnightonce or twice already. You probably kissed my forehead and looked at mewith that look you will never see yourself.
Encounter on the Moose River
Startled by steps –that New Balancebounce – loud asBoeing jets glidingthrough the metallicclouds of a perfectaloneness, a blueheron hides betweentwo teal wings, foldingand glittering, holdingits eyelids near theflowing stillness of ariver, bare and abundant.
Whispering
Under a dying Sycamorea soft handsimply rises on my chest bringing something closeto comfortso lonely and satisfied.
A Buddhist Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic
Recently on the PBS News Hour, David Brooks called COVID-19 a national stress test for how well and long we can maintain our collective faith in institutions and each other. Indeed, the coronavirus has shaken the very foundations of society as we all know it. But to call it a stress test is, given what […]
His Shaman Eyes
felt heavy as slabs of sandstone,like the pyramids. But only after he offered prayers tothe unearthed, cleansed bythe drumming, a cold thunder on the dry mouth of an Illinois Prarie.