Tag Archives for poetry

The train

I arrive in this day in it’s beginning.
My eyes open in this day in this land
before you have laid your heads down
to sleep yesterday, my friends.

We are cresting the wave of this dawn
in a slow-rolling train
fueled by the back-breaking sawahs,
the burning of plastic-filled trash,
the rivers choked with refuse,
the dishonorable care of animals,
the shouting loudspeakers to God,
the staticky vibrations of places
never empty of people.

My friends,
the veil of wealth is clouding our eyes.
We think we are at the forefront of the wave,
but in reality
we are at the rear of the train
being propelled forward by the advancing heaviness of multitudes.

We cannot reach the new day without encompassing all of this in love.

I dance

The long lines of rice,
the carefully banked and flooded fields
edged with leafy umbrellas of cassava and papaya
and trellised rows calling vegetables up from the ground.
Bent workers wading through muddy waters
below mountains that appear out of murky skies
and shield their sharp summits in downy billows.
All past the patchwork towns,
the shiny green-walled cupolas,
the rainbow red roof tiles,
all through the sun’s stretching arms,
the music plays
and I dance.
I dance.
I dance.

Oh Future, my Future

I want the unequivocal YES,
I want the sweet joy of riding bikes under the arching trees toward home,
I want whatever beautiful plant this is to grow in the garden of my mythical dream.
Oh Future, my Future,
envelope me with the regal fierceness of a July afternoon,
serenade to me with the gentle piercing call of dawn,
reach up to me through this rich earth
and show me where to plant these eager starts. 

  
 

One day

Leaving California again,
this time in the direction of power,
undulating through the mountain-rich wilds,
over the long miles,
I practice my “forgive you’s”.
One day soon I will be able to express them
fully,
unfollowed by anger.

One day.

The selfish suffering part of me
is not yet willing
to accept defeat
in this last battle.

One day,
soon.

We have some miles more to go yet.

room for the heart

Follow your science,
if you will,
but allow room for the heart (to live).
It is not logical,
nor linear,
it cannot be confined
inside your empirically-designed
compartments and rules.

Prescribe you view,
if you will,
but allow room for the heart (to grow).
To be unbounded,
to be free,
to bring you all the limitless possibilities
of a life
made with love.

tide

Everything is measured in distance from you.
There are moments,
even series of them,
that extend beyond breaths,
where the swell of the earth
overflows the ache,
but,
like the ocean,
inexorable,
it returns,
filling every crevice
with the absence of you.

threads

I have a manifesto writtenthat I have not shared,
I have a heart still broken
that does not know how to forgive,
I have sadnesses waiting in the wings
that are not mine to heal,
yet the sun still reveals more beauty,
and the birds still sing in the face of thunder,
and my heart still knows how to love.
It is the weaving together of threads
that gives them strength.