The Voyage Out

I saved you a seat 

At the back of the room

In my mind where I sit 

And look out at the world.

While the floor is quite nice,

I’ve removed all the walls.

We come and we go now

Whenever we please,

Along with the sunshine

And shadows and breezes.

You can talk if you want,

Or if you want to, just be.

And at night I’ll stand guard

While you learn how to fall asleep.

And in your dreams you’ll voyage out

To get lost on the angry seas

And I’ll be like Penelope 

Who makes her love a tapestry

Late August leaves its bookmark in

The edges of the forest where,

Before the dusk has nestled in,

The last of summer’s light retreats

And cannot write the understory. 

Each season has a start and end,

But seasons haven’t any—

And so it is each time our souls

Embark upon their journeys.

And in your dreams you’ll voyage out

To get lost on the angry seas

And I’ll be like Penelope 

Who makes her love a tapestry

Light of the World

When the light goes out

In that city on the hill,

The message will still echo

But the words will come up empty

And the chalice will be spilled.

When the waters break,

The labor pains of the new earth

Will shake the old until it passes on

And becomes new.

The consciousness of those who see this shift

Will split in two.

Under Foot

I remember the rosebush

That climbed up the front porch

And filtered the afternoon sunlight

Onto our laps where it curled like a cat

That was wrapping its tail in its paws for a nap.

I remember the effort

It took to remove the decades old

Underground kingdom of roots

That anchored its visible network of thorns

To the earth where its petals

Would fall one by one

Under foot. 

Pre-Decision Decisions

I’ve made a lot of mistakes as a parent, but one tactic I chanced on that seemed to work was to focus more on shaping future behavior than on denigrating present behavior. In a way I think it gave my kids the notion early on that their continued change and growth was a given. For example, I would always make them try a bite of a new food but if they said they didn’t like it, they didn’t have to eat it. But if there was something I expected them eventually to eat, like a salad, I would say, “Oh you don’t like that yet? You will when you’re older,” and then drop it. Then they would have the idea in their head and often decide to prove themselves older by proudly announcing that they wanted to try salad again, and now like it. 

I think that’s a tactic we can use on ourselves, too. When you come to the point of recognizing that you must change something in your life that you know will be difficult to change, sometimes it helps simply to declare to yourself, “This is something I’m eventually going to have to change.” You can’t actually make the change until you fully commit to it— and you won’t know you’re there until you suddenly know you are there— but that’s a big step in getting there. 

Arithmetic

Time’s not a gift of arithmetic—

What I take from my store

Can’t be added to yours—

It can only be shared—

When it is, we’re aware

Of its absence,

If anyone asks us.

Beau Fleuve

This morning at the water’s edge

Near the wastewater plant at 10 am,

I saw three friends with a bonfire smoking

And music playing on someone’s phone

And I kept on running and left them behind

And went back to my house and drew the blinds. 

I cleaned all the floors and prepared for the week,

And I thought about scheduling several things.

And the river looks more the same than not

As it did on the day McKinley was shot

And those who live by it know better than most

The way that time turns us all into ghosts.

United In Diversity

With the world on the brink

All the borders are breached

While new fences enclose

Smaller and smaller spaces

And even the smallest

Conversations become gated. 

The walls that we build 

In between our own thoughts

Find their way to our hands

As we carve the world up.