Digital Divide

Ha, we text.

That’s the way it feels:

As if in a dream,

Like nothing existed

At all, the petering out,

The flick on the nose

From the Universe.

Ho-hum, we text.

The weakest points

Remain from the git-go,
One surmises.

OK, we text.
And so it happens —

Little lives

Passed over,

Bad blood running

Through hearts.

Ugh, we text.
I have to ask myself

— and this shakes me —

Why do I not feel

The purifying change?
Maybe next time
(...)

January Sunrise

A moment ago,

The sky switched

To something else:

From a muted gray cloud flock

Into a single bird ablaze,

With a star burning its edges.

The show never lasts long,

Familiar in its glory,

This brief drama

Lifting the curtain
From dawn to day.

The Cookie Jar

Restless in his soul

Going down dead-ends

Traveling highways north and south

On the run to find 

Where he had begun

No matter which road he followed

He could not locate what he lost

And was trying to find it

Looking in flea markets 

And second-hand stores

Because money was tight

It would take time

He knew

To bring it back

One day he 

Spotted it on a shelf

No worse for the wear

He understood 

What it meant

Took it to his house

Placed it on the counter

He knew his daughters' hands

Would one day touch

Its smooth ceramic lid

And they did

Daughter Dreams (for Nina at one year)

Hushed as prayer,
She floats down
Into his arms
In the gliding chair
In her night-lighted room,
Her gentle cries now tucked
Between the petals
Of sleep, he delights
In his treasure:
The warm weight of her
Concentrated self —
From the fragrant blond whorl
At the top of her head
To her pajama-padded feet,
This exquisite newness
Upon whose smooth surface
The world has etched little,
Leaving all grace to linger,
How on this night,
in this moment,
He knows,
Where his
Spirit meets his bones,
That she will blossom
With the pure
power of possibility.

Home, Coming

There sits a house
On a high hill
With a clear view
Of the sea —
Up near heaven enough
To protect us
From the tempest.
The doors never lock.
Laughter dribbles
Down the walls.
Love drenches
All who enter —
Young and old.
My love is there,
Surrounded by
Family and friends.
Everyone gets heard
Through their hearts.
Everyone responds
With candor,
With kindness.

Misneach

What is it about this word
From a dead language
That rolled off the tongues
Of your ancestors?
It propels all things,
Informs all things,
From flower to newborn.
Be up and doing.
Here's to the one who rallies,
The one who puts his chin up
And presses on —
With goodness in his heart.
Misneach, say it loud with
A Scottish burr.
Learn to labor,
Learn to hope.

My Grandfather's Ghost on Christmas Day

Born in Bermuda
enroute from the Azores,
he came to Fall River,
this boy in woolen knickers
whose chocolate eyes
he would give my mother.
He grew to hate the shackle
of the bell in the mill tower
that tolled the shift changes,
the days, the years, the lives.
He saw all of it ahead of time
in one instant, and wanting
no part of that agony,
he left, at 16, on
a freezing October night,
hitchhiked to Canada,
lied about his age, and
joined the Black Watch.
One hundred years ago,
to the day,
on December 25, 1914,
in the forests of France,
hearing shouts of "Merry Christmas"
in German accents,
he emerged from his foxhole,
walked into the mud
of no-man's land,
And gave a soldier
chocolate and cigarettes,
the same soldier he
would kill with a bullet
the next morning.
Maybe the memory
gave him his rage,
for he was not spared:
The pain and the alcohol tore
everything to shreds —
and the wounds have taken
a century to form thick scars.