My Valentine to Creation

Something about the tangible itself,
Every inch and speck of it —
From the oak tree on the corner
Bearing fattening buds to the
People milling about in the soft,
Yellow light of their homes —
That just cries out for praise.
How exquisite is the world
And everything in it, if we look,
And are at rest and without
Internal strife or external threat.
How remarkable is mere breath tonight
And the dog on the leash
Sniffing tall snowbanks to
Decipher a dog code
We will never know.
How beautiful are all the people
We love and have loved — in those
Moments when we locked eyes
And smiled knowingly
At the bliss of existence.
How lucky have I been to connect
And make people laugh and cry
And think and wonder.
And they have done the same for me —
In ways deep and true.
I love them all.
How blessed it is to have moved
About this planet to far-flung places
To experience the differences
In cultures and landscapes.
How essentially good and true it is
To know God personally, to have
That awareness of a divine force
Behind everything, pulsing in
Your fingertips as well as in the stars,
Pressing out with an undeniable,
Ever-expanding affirmation that love
Infuses all things, all creation,
That faith is humming in the
March evening air tonight,
That somehow all is not lost and
Everything comes together harmoniously,
That love endures all eternity, all tragedy,
All pain, all unknowable boundaries ...
Lift up my heart and soul to sing praise —
I offer myself utterly and completely to you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

In An Instant

all seems to turn around

like you never planned it

those fears that cropped up

wash under the coral reef

or silt under the forest floor

those dark clouds replaced

by the sunshine that had

glowed up there all along

that bare branch budding out

cliché and hokey but true

we lie to ourselves

far too much for our own good

and the lesson is to

soldier on as it were
and minimize your mistakes

Sear

Enough.

Uncle.

You won.

I get it.

Point taken.

Purify me.

Burn out

My soul's
Impurities
In your crucible.
Disconnect me.

Hollow me out.

I am a smoldering

Shell of self.
Still, I cry for mercy.

The Snowflake

Just one — take your pick.
No two alike, they say.
Crystallized thousands of
Feet up in numbers
Defying any calculation,
Each a solitary star
Etched in ice —
A glittering, symmetrical,
Fragile masterpiece
Of precision and elegance.
Just one — conceived
In cloud, blown sideways,
Buffetted, battered, twirling,
Dropping in the dark
Over ocean, field, and forest.
Just one — turn skyward,
Open wide, and let it
Hit your tongue
With a crisp hiss.

It's Not My World

"All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?"
—T.S. Eliot, "Journey of the Magi"

Never was,
Though I act as if.
I don't matter fully
In the great scheme.
One soul.
One heartbeat.
One life.
You love as best you can.
You attempt to offer a salve,
Some goodness, in the paucity
Of your humanness.
But you are not the world,
Though many days it
Feels that way.
Never was.
Get it line, I say,
With the march of Time.
Ten-feet tall and bullet-proof:
As if!
What I do have:
Memories varied and deep —
And life and life and life ...

Stone. Cold. Sober.

I - Stone

Flecked. Fissured. Fickle.
Toughen my toes
By tickling them.
Something afoot,
Heel it.
Crack the code
Of the millennia,
Drop by drop,
A yoke around
Your neck.
Swim, don't sink.
Begin. Believe. Beware.
Turn your sharp angles
Skyward and open
Your stony heart
To chisel the infinite air.

II - Cold

Staccato. Stasis. Stuck.
Edges mostly submerged,
Beyond your ken and patience
To linger here struck
By a dumb block,
Bottom-heavy,
With an alarmingly gargantuan
Base, deaf and mute and still.
But some days beautiful
at rest, the part exposed,
Carved a perfect dull square,
Yet split and splintered,
The same immovable snooze.

III - Sober

No matter.
Long after you are gone,
Night and day, hot and cold,
You will make a pile of dust by then.
And the stone will still stand.
You caught it here, though,
In the roughest of edges.
You talked of the rock.
The rock remains.
You roll on.

Half and Half

Time ticks out moments,
Minutes, hours, days, years —
If we are fortunate.

Many do not get this far,
And the obvious seems trite,
But triteness is Truth today.

To be here at all is a blessing,
At the half-century mark,
Still breathing this icy air.

If I could utter any wisdom at all,
And that is questionable,
It might be this:

Place your life before you like an altar
And give praise, leaving offerings
Of love and kindness.

And when you fail, and you will,
Return to that altar, knowing that
Every moment can shift toward love.

Every chance you get, lose yourself
In love and hope and service.
Do not fritter away precious time.

By our very humanness, we remain halved,
Fifty-percent to fullness, but Divinity
Might just help close that gap.

We are incomplete for good reason —
It allows for that striving to propel
Us along toward unattainable perfection.

As Eliot wrote, the way forward
Is the way back, and the future
Is a faded song, a flower pressed

Between the pages of a book
That we have not opened
But that was written for us.

I think of being five years old,
Close to God without knowing it,
And returning there in spirit.

This world oozes with negation,
Find those who are additive,
The rest are just dross.

Live by that formula, that sweet
Algorithm of space and time —
Share a smile, give a hug, keep loving.

When you are halved,
Seek to be whole —
At all costs, do not subtract.

When the glass is half full,
I am happy to report,
You can quench your thirst.