______________ After my father died, I leafed through his notebooks as a schoolboy as he was learning his trade. This poem comes from feeling him as a young learner. SIZING HIS DREAM (FOR MY BROTHER) Near the end, our father gave me these notebooks written in his hand when he was sixteen, trying to under- stand his trade. There are drawings and measurements. He was sizing his dream. I want each of us to have one, to have a piece... Read more

______________ Those who put down what is false, no matter how dear, are my heroes. THE ROUGH BEAUTY We think what’s familiar is normal, but whether you’re born under a rock or on a cliff six inches from heaven, nothing matters but the effort to shed the mud or glare of whatever covers you, so that nothing is between you and life. Though everything wants to film you over: dirt, pain, regret, memory, or the shine of dream and expectation.... Read more

______________   It’s humbling how often we try to run from where we land, almost always missing the power inherent in the truth of things as they are.   Disrobing in Time   Nothing is easy, but to tell the truth. The truth of what I see and feel. This somehow cleanses my eye and it becomes clear what to do.   In my pain I forget to admit what is true and things get worse. Because I don’t want... Read more

______________ The questions we ask of life and ourselves are archetypal, regardless of the gadgets we invent.   RELIC FROM THE FUTURE Questions found on an antique cell phone discovered in 2086 in the ruins of an airport when people traveled by plane: What if I let love in all the way? Why am I always leaving? What is it that stirs me about being caught? Though I never wanted safe, why have I settled for safe? Why do I... Read more

______________ I was ready to fly home after teaching in Albuquerque, when the sudden light on the underside of a palm trip took me to another time.   WAITING TO BE PICKED UP A burst of light makes me look across the way, where a sliver of dawn slips under the leaf of a palm tree. The lift of the palm feels Egyptian and the trap door to our age opens to all time. Sudden light can do this. Like... Read more

______________ We live in a global culture addicted to the noise of how things fall apart. Yet all the while, things are quietly coming together as well. It’s not about good news or bad news, but having access to whole news. This poem explores what’s below the noise. NEWS OF THE UNIVERSE The thousand alarms we hear each day are only half the news. There’s no avoiding this but it’s the other half we need. Today—light from a star that... Read more

______________ Our ecological problems are evidence of a deeper, spiritual problem whereby we, feeling incomplete, feed off the Whole; whereby we, feeling empty, use everything up in an attempt to fill ourselves; whereby we, feeling insignificant, scar the earth in order to feel significant.   Short Wisdom on a Long Planet We keep turning one thing into another and calling it progress. We keep machining the beauty off of things as they are, using tools to create more tools, as... Read more

______________ We fight it constantly, but the meaning of life waits beyond all our plans and under all our desires; waiting for us to lose our maps and crack our hard shells open so that the light within can join with the light without.   THE FESTIVAL OF LIFE What if the heart cracks like a seed, needing to be opened to grow? Then how do we understand what comes pouring out? Does pain turn into a small root? Does... Read more

______________   One of the reasons we are so bound to storytelling is that the telling opens us to truths too large to keep in view.   BEYOND THE TELLING I met a woman from Brazil who had to tell her story. Her mother was a difficult woman. But at the piano, she moved like a heron flying low to the water, mirroring the deep. The moment she finished—her hands lifting like slow wings from the keys—her mother was breathless.... Read more

______________   One of the noble covenants of love is how we take turns lifting each other from the limited vision that arises when we are in pain, how we take turns reminding each other that there is more than our pain, more than our despair, while bearing witness to our pain and despair. This poems comes from such a time. BETWEEN THE WALL AND THE FLAME You ask, “How can you believe in anything when there’s pain everywhere?” And... Read more