The Wedding Band

It’s faded now,

The indentation filled in.

You grew fat and unhappy

While the music played on,

Growing faint, diminuendo of the heart.

Clanging cymbal, you were: Own it.

And now this: the hairs on that finger stand up.

The sun has passed nearly 12 seasons over it,

Darkening the white strip of flesh.

We are all flesh, mortal in our actions.

You have caressed other women’s bodies

With that finger, tracing their silken secrets —

Bliss, finally, at this age,

Unfettered by the 0.25 troy ounce of

Alloyed gold that the symbol held.

Bought at a shopping mall and redeemed at one

At the height of the precious-metals bull market,

Everyone seeking ultimate security,

You plopped it down on a felt pad

In front of a buyer.

He examined it, weighed it, and sniffed:

“One hundred and eighty-five.”

"I’ll take it.”

Now, it’s held in a safe, or melted into an ingot,

Or refashioned into something new—
Glittering and cherished.

You'd like to imagine the latter.

There Could Have Been a Time

There could have been a time

When the path might have changed,

But nothing changed,

And the pain turned to adventure,

A cracking open of oneself,

Where the light finally shined.

In that space, divinity planted

Its seed, just as when someone

You love goes down in a plane

Or gets mangled in a car.

The shock of it all jolts

You back to your own life.

And everything grows crisp,

Sparkles, and lights from within.

Without the narrow places,

We would never access

The vastness of space,

Within, without.

52 Minus 20

Twenty years silted in,

Gone, poof,

To the day, and Time’s arrow

Still flies for me, truer, straighter,

Though I have sadly frittered away

Many hours, 

As we all do.

And yet for your physical absence

You have bestowed some indelible

Gift, a treasure of time to hold within

Me always — I return to the well-worn

Touchstone of the blessed present tense,

Again and again,

A slowing down,

To bridge the gaps,

Stitching moment with moment.

When I rest,
When I dream,
When I pray,

You return to me,
Brother,
Fully alive,

Ray of light,

Filling the void.

March 7, 2013

Esther

Beam of light,

Familiar yet foreign,

Her presence felt,

In a twinkle of a 
Cataractic opaque blue,

She saw clear possibility through

The days, and knew that hope

Endures and gets stitched into

Life with love, to make an elegant

Shawl in which we wrap ourselves,

Hanging together,

Because it remains all that we have

And hold onto,

More precious than anything.

The moon and the stars know this.

As does the rising sun.

And the birds by the window.

Or the cat’s eyes captures it.

Or the loping, drooling dog.

How about a child’s smile?

How about sheer delight?

Pay attention, she reminded us,

Without any lecture,

The way the very best teacher

Goes about it by example.

The Day Is Like Wide Water, Without Sound*

Run what leaves

Your mind through your heart

Before it exits your mouth.

There is a source.

It can be corrupted.

The source is all goodness.

It is corrupted by fear and misplaced passion.

People who do terrible things

Are corrupting this goodness.

Yet they seek the goodness

Of the source at the same time.

It is a corruption of love.

Every moment is sacred.

There is deep peace in each instance.

Fear prevents you from experiencing it.

The chrysalis opens halfway.

Sticky adhesions reveal wings,

As the butterfly struggles.

(Written on the day of the Sandy Hook shootings.)

(*From Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning")

In the Waiting Area at LaGuardia

Among America’s capitalist

Cowboys and cowgirls,

Decked out in our

Post-Millennium garb —

Leather, denim, slip-off shoes,

White wires sprouting from our heads,

Faces burrowed into our screens.

We all seem bemused

At this hour, in this time.

Menacingly, two dark-skinned soldiers

Strut the floor,

Milling about the baggage check,

The noses of their AK-47s pointed downward,

Cloaked in uniforms gone tan,

As the battle for the American Way

Heads from jungle to desert.

Why I Still Believe

I can count on it like clockwork:

He arrives late, on Christmas eve,

His presence building,

Some ineffable, magic pattern

Tessellating the air.

Alone by the tree, lights twinkling,

Balsam scents swirling,

I hear a tinkling of bells,

Crisp snowflakes falling

Like rice dropped on paper,

When some low voice 

Rises out of the dark and silence,
The lights flicker, brighten,

Then a shadow moves

In the corner of the eye, 

A bumbling benevolence glimpsed.

I catch it, despite

Commerce’s ugly rattle,

Replaced by all that endures,

Merciful and hopeful:

A sudden, sharp recognition

Of what is right in each of us.

And he comes, big-bearded white knight,

White light, this night,

Bounding clumsily into my heart.