Stacked

Exploring the law reminds me of
Tiptoeing through abandoned buildings as a child 
And finding dusty calendars tacked on a wall
With loopy cursive anticipations—

Rotary dial telephones and wooden recipe boxes 
Left for what? Tuesday dinner September 23, 3034?

What is any written record for—

If not for us quietly to explore like children looking for something more 

Than whatever today’s plans hold? 

Do not forget to close the kitchen door 

On your way out. This life is one plate

In a stack on a waiter’s hand that holds a dozen more. 

Scars

When the sun comes up, it'll tear the sky
Like a razor tears a wrist,
But I'll be safe in bed with you
Where every cut is like a kiss.

When the dark descends, it’ll find us blindly
Tracing the constellations
Of our scars across the empty space
Of flesh in which they're hung.

We didn’t know when we were young
That every effort is undone by time,
And we’re still in it. Wiser now,
We fall asleep and dream of immortality.

 

Lone Sparrow

Even the sun can fall in line
Behind her paler sister, 
Crown her princess for the afternoon-- 
The penumbra a diadem for the moon

While on the ground the headstones snatch
Their shadows back into the grave--
The last trill of a lone sparrow echoes
Off the bare spring earth, now strangely closed,

As are all of those who witness
Now the larger darkness spilling
From the sun's humility--

The moon remains the princess
Of the darkness, willingly. 

Flight

Just as our flight takes off,

I wonder with a jolt of panic

If I have left enough food for the cat

I no longer have, the one who

Years ago fell asleep in the dryer

On top of a pile of clothes

Right before I closed the door

To warm them one more time.

It is always moments like this

When my subconscious chooses to remind me

In a visceral way that it is too late,

And I have made a fatal mistake.

Sunday Morning Run

My feet meet the salted shoulder of the road

Before my mind has considered where we are going,

Oblique November sunrays slicing sideways

Through the red and yellow leaves remaining,

As if the stained glass windows in the cathedral

Of the morning have been half removed,

In need of restoring,

And pure white light is pouring in.

All else is silhouette, hushed as if waiting

For the Host. Meanwhile my feet have veered

From concrete onto dirt, following the road

At a remove I feel more connected to.

The paths my ancestors wore that became roads

Still exist-- and not just human. I become

Each animal of prey, hugging its body close to the earth,

Escaping through quick subterfuge.

The trees have filtered this strange light

Through their thousand ungloved fingers

Since long before human eye or art

Imposed on them such leaden images.

We are going the way that all mortal things must go--
Haunted to the grave by the eternity in our bones.

Outside Loretto Chapel

In the empty spaces between the pale adobe faces

Of buildings, chile ristras drying in bunches in doorways

Lift on the breeze that, on the twisted back of the evening,

Carries an ancient lament across the desert.

After the wedding party, led by a mariachi band

Up a sandstone staircase, falls asleep in white sheets,

The land recalls the rhythms of a thousand forgotten languages 

Pressed by weary feet into its surface.

The dry aged hand of the wind with a hundred whistling names (all forgotten) — stops

To remember all the tears it has collected in its palm, 

And once a year returns them to those who stop here now,

Strange tongues opening to catch the drops.

Freedom

I attended Houghton College for my undergraduate education. They are a Christian liberal arts school with a chapel in the center of campus. The school has a policy of compulsory worship-- or at least it did in the mid-1990s when I attended. We were required to attend chapel 3x per week and we had to scan in with our student IDs to prove that we attended. I found the concept of compulsory worship revolting, and during my senior year, continued to attend chapel, but stopped scanning in. 

Mid-way through the year, I was called into the office of some college official who dressed me down for my lack of attendance. He made the assumption that I had not attended, without asking me any questions. So I kept my mouth shut, allowed him to persist in his incorrect judgment of my behavior, and accepted my punishment, which consisted of listening to recordings of chapel services and writing notes on them. 

It was a liberating experience for me to remain silent in these circumstances. I knew that I was in the right, and that was all that mattered to me. That experience became something of a template for me. Whenever I am faced with judgments on my character or conduct based on something other than actual knowledge, and without being given the opportunity to tell my side of the story before judgments are passed, I simply hold my tongue and allow people to continue on their way. It costs me nothing to receive their wrong judgments-- nothing other than their esteem, which by then I place no value upon. And it seems to give them real enjoyment to pass these judgments. In a way, I enjoy it too. I enjoy my freedom from their view of the world.