As the Choir Sang

On the day when we woke in 1939, 
I stood in a choir room, surrounded by the voices of angels, as my best friend conducted them, and they spread their wings to sing for him 

They sang a song called ‘Spirit’
“Christ on my left
Christ on my right
Christ by my side”
As tanks rolled through the countryside, and into town
With blood along the ground

They will claim the Christ
(Of course, they will claim the Christ)
As tank treads mark the mud
And cities roil in blood 

Christ, have mercy
Christ, have mercy 

Someday, I too will die
My friend may go before me, or behind;
And though I wonder how wise we will be, then,
When we tend to the end of things 
One thing I know:
Some part of each other we will hold
Though we never fully put words to it
And never needed to, through all the years

It will be enough to know we tended to it, faithfully 
A comfort against the grave
Against death’s dark sting
As angels sing 

But I wonder what comfort have those who rise now, against the night?
And who holds the dying,
With the dark on every side?

Christ, have mercy
Christ, have mercy  

Pain is a Bony Beast

Pain is a bony beast, hard to ride, and everyone wants to get off, as fit to die 

In our flailing, we are most often thrown from its great back into the weeds, 
Like dust or detritus,
With no wish to get back on, and no hope of home 

But if you can find the courage, the same beast will take you there 
And bring you, on the winding path, back
Not only to yourself, but
To all that—once lost—is now 
More than found
On sacred ground 

In the barn which you did not build, in that good place
The beast (you will see, at last) is in fact a steed
And finding yourself strangely moved, and fearless, 
You will wrap a warm blanket around him
With a sigh and a long embrace
A knowing smile on your face

There is No Relationship Until You've Fought

He was always good and just fine and no problem, almost all the time
But the problem was she wanted something more and real
She wanted problems, something she could feel 
Like hard lime she could push up against and climb;
She did not fear the falling down,
She wanted miles up, above the ground

The great paradox of love 
Is that it's safe only when it allows no safe space
It can be a platform to hold the world's great weight
But first you have to burn it down:
There is no relationship without conflict
And conversation is, always, the relationship 
It only goes as far as the next true thing we will not say 

So, there's no trust until it's earned, in flames 
And until you've moved into that place of grace— 
That place of conflagration and flames— 
You are just trading information about your days

You must become, instead, like two climbers finding, in tandem, perfect balance
Dangling above the frightening space below 
Only then do you look up and know
You've never seen a view so glorious
You're terrified, perhaps, and afraid of dying
But my God you're so alive, and smiling 

There is always this possibility, inviting you:
Start with the ending 
Perhaps it will become a new beginning
Burn it down and see what survives
Maybe you'll still be standing

And when you hold hands, after the conflagration,
The Phoenix will be in your chest, burning like fire in your breast
Your bodies thrumming not with the sexiness of youth (which is always fading, anyway) 
But something much deeper down, and stronger, beneath the dirt

You become 
The very longing of the earth, hard as rocks and mountains
And dappled, like April rain
Sun, and rock, and blades of grass
All in conflict
All in perfect conversation  
Creating every perfect season
Alive in endless resurrection

The Golden String I

Once you have tasted and know that the bright golden string runs through all things
How then can death have any sting?
How, now, can I fear that love will not lift me?

I will leave the way of things and pass through the trees
Because the bright green spring is playing at the edges of all our vision, like sunlight
And such vision is prophecy
As is the smell of autumn smoke in my nose 

And the memory of Tangiers—which I visited during a long draught of sorrow, and whose beauty, then, was to me only a mockery—is now a hall of mirrors, 
Of shape and delight unending
A golden tangerine whose juice seems to swell all the earth with seeing 
Only because 
The string runs through it and now, I know
Through you and me 

El Dorado Nature Center

The forest, seemingly dealt a death wound by the encroaching swaths of concrete in this greedy city, its woods nearly asphyxiated by asphalt,
Is a remarkable magician, slipping free, 
A grand Houdini 
A mage and a sage with some great prank to play,
A cardsharp who has pulled the winning ace

As we walk through its woods, the world falls away
And though we can still hear, near us, the faint drumming of the freeway
Always on this walk
Another noise overtakes us, soundlessly

If you’re quiet, you can hear something say
That the most minute tree breathes with the promise of ferocity
The Nature Center, after all, smells the same as the Black Forest, dark and unyielding, Just waiting to break free

And so
Ominous promises rise on every side:
This forest is a stronghold, bristling in the knowledge that someday 
It will be at liberty 
And will hold hands once again with all its brothers, across the land

It but slumbers here, while future visions appear
As at the coming of the Christ,
Cities and gardens will end their strife 
And wolves lie down with lambs 
As we walk, free of worry,
And hand-in-hand 

After the Accident

What she was she is no longer
And yet she is not gone

Though not the same, certainly, 
It's hard to name or say what makes it so,
When subtle changes re-arrange a personality
What is a self, exactly?
What can go? What must remain? 

There is joy and there is loss, like gold and dross:
As we attempt to grasp in hands which once knew how to hold her
We gasp at the cost 
And the risk we all take in inhabiting human frames

Altered as she is, it feels an end
Our hearts quake 
Our own bodies begin to shake
But so they do when we put out to sea
Or gape at beauty: 
As seeing a seabird on perfect wings,
So we breathe

We breathe and hold and let it go
Like letting ourselves into the autumn sea
Like swans washed out by too much morning light
Like trees, holding ourselves imperceptibly 
Or fog on the mountains, the sun slowly burning through us,
Until we see

That we can only do this together
That is the gift of broken things
It takes many hands holding each other to make things whole 
And though what was is gone
We are here, and we are with her, still
We hold her, come night or dawn

As we walk out
From the lonely forests of our solitary ways
Into this new clearing space
Reality takes on a different shape
And we marvel at the beauty of all these faces around us
Brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers
Wondering why, like hermits, we lived so many years
So very far from one another 

Strange Luck

It seems strange that
So much destiny
Is rooted in misadventure and chance, uncontrolled, and happenstance 

No one asks to be born
No one knows in advance who their parents will be
(On which so very much depends)
And no one chooses their native soil 

A great throw of the dice, then
To step mute and blind into the bright world 
And how does God stand at that table, a bystander, 
To see what’s rolled?
How does God stand the endless letting go? 

He becomes like a bartender wondering at the sad swan songs, drowned in alcohol, 
All around Him
The shipwrecks of so many tender souls, bereft of hope 

In the mis-adventure and the course of life
Any fate can be overcome
But still,
The beginning imprints so very much
Like hot wax sealed over a human heart—
How your parents looked at you 
How they raised their hands 
To love or strike you 
And how they measured up to life itself 

All the while:
The grass does not curse its mother
She is faithful as the father sun above 
And the earth does not toil or labor or spin  

But then again
The trees around us so easily fulfill their desires 
And
The field mice have no drunken fathers
The birds of the air no unfaithful sires 

The Shape of Inner Knowing

I had continual intuition, as a child, like a radar receiving recognitions, constantly, 
Of some shape, taking wings, out there, beyond the trees

They came to me like pockets of air, unexpectedly 
When, for instance, I placed my empty cereal bowl in the sink and 
Looked up, out the kitchen window, where a squirrel leaped to the next brown-leafed tree
The branch bobbing on the morning with its weight, like a buoy in the sea
I would sense something, out there, calling out to me

The whole street sits so quietly
And while everything rests, everything, also is moving imperceptibly
Even the tree has its slow, still breath, 
Like the waves, like the sea

The flower pushes up from its roots, the oak strains up, just so, 
But in-between it all, these little invocations come
These unbidden calls, 
Like a nighthawk that only invites on sight, and gives no sound
They bid you to slow down
And to simply watch

Everything, after all, is like bird-watching
It takes a certain, slower speed to see much of anything 
And there is always something waiting
Rising in the very shape of our desire
Just beyond the next horizon
Just beyond the sea
Waiting for the moonlight
As it rises through the trees

Interesting and Wild

"Oh that’s interesting," she said, tilting her head
Relying on that most amiable of euphemisms
To be polite
Certainly, to hide the more honest responses within her mind
Which her body fired like flintlock inside her 
But
"Interesting" is what she said
Which was not quite a lie and did suffice 

Similarly,
A friend taught me to say, "Oh that's wild,"
When words are hard to find
A phrase so close to truth that it, too, does not lie
Even as it finds a way to hide 
The deeper truth we will not say

So, we make our way within the day
Beneath the bright sun's light
Wondering, so often, why our life's life seems to elude us
As we look for some truth that seems to linger
Just beyond our grasping fingers 

What She Said After She Stopped and Faced Things

I have feared the white opening of light, I don’t deny it
Feared it, perhaps, not as one dreads the night or the fright of a dark movie
But as one fears the morning that bright seeing brings
As one fears the first note of a symphony 
And what getting started means

Like an animal trembling in a trap
I have moved with such speed
To avoid the reckoning stirring so endlessly inside of me,
Wishing to rise
Inviting me 

But this I did not foresee:

A hand reaching out to hold me
Unburdening cords
On shoulders too long strapped with weight
So unexpected—to find love and grace

And I am like a fawn sprung from the trap
Running on awkward hooves, but growing stronger
Springing up and running on such joyous feet as mine
I find, at last, the ground beneath me

I did not know the dragon would release me if I but faced it
If I simply turned and stopped and spoke its name

Nor that autumn would embrace me, as once it did before the winter 
Enfolding me with falling leaves
And burning smoke
And—better late than never—
The harvest 
And October, in ochre, with its generous jubilee 

America, We Sing for Thee

If you stop between two docks, you’ll drop down and drown
And even here, on desert sand, you cannot stand for long
So, we are always moving on, for greener ground 

We are, after all, the land of possibilities, still
Grizzled by the years after our great victories, our minds now muddled as an old man's
But we have strength somewhere deep, beneath the ground, and youth to be renewed
We just can't remember where we set it down

We are unsharpened now
By the lack of enemies to wrestle, 
So we wrestle ourselves
And we tear our shelters down

But dear God over the blue-black desert this morning, the light turned all to gold and orange and red       
And we are not dead
We, through this convulsion, this tortuous path to morning (so we pray) 
Will find the morning glories, which give new life
As the poet said: may this be the darkness of a womb, 
And not a tomb 

So, America, 
We Sing for Thee, 
Which is Us
Which is You
Which is Me 

Some Bright Soul

It was a strange place for a beacon 
That light 
That burned in the backyard all night, breaking apart the darkness

It was a strange X on a map, to mark
Nothing more than the backside of a house, some grass, a broken down truck

A passing crow or kite might find respite there, a rest from flight
But last night, a storm struck and knocked the whole yard senseless;
Like a boxer, defenseless, in pummeling cloud and rain and darkness
The black of night filling every nook

Our whole house shook, 
But then I looked out the window and saw that light cutting through the rain, as the seas, insane, could not stamp it out
A lighthouse, as on the coast of Maine 
Holding down our world
Keeping us tethered to the earth

So the dirt was turned to light
The storm was pushed away 
And this, always, is the way:
Some soul holds back the night 
Some soul faces the rain and does not blink, but 
Takes the dark ink of night and re-writes it 

Someone will not let the light go 
Someone sees the storm, stands up, and says, without a raised voice,
Just one word:
"No"

Only Perfection Will Take Your Soul

I hung the frames in my house at perfect angles, to make their symmetry agree with me
While in the bathroom, my son ripped out the toilet paper spinner
And looked up at me, quite pleased 

It still works, so I left it awkward on the wall
To remind us all
That perfection is not attainable
And not everything is a right angle 

A house, above all, is to be lived in 
It is no museum
And its incompletions can remind us that we are fragile, fickle things
And so is life
As a bird is a fragility on lovely wings
And so are we 

And since putting everything in order is endless 
Life is only, ever, about finding balance, and
Asking how much is enough, since
Between chaos and perfection, only one will take your soul

Remember, my child:
Beauty is found in the strangest places 
Thrives, in fact, in broken spaces
Once we accept how out of control we truly are

In a race in which we all go down to the ground
The goal is to arrive in the dirt undeceived about what you were running towards
For then, with clear eyes, the good, green earth receives you
And you become part of the imperfect spring, buzzing in its completion
In its perfect chaos
And you become a sapling, waiting for the second birth 
And the ordering of all good things

In the Beginning Was the Word

Sometimes, when the moment strikes
Most often, late at night
When the sky is storm-swept and lit up from the city, so many miles away, 
And the clouds are shining purple and gray and red 
Or when the wind is roiling like the sea, lifting branches on the breeze
The sky cobalt and black and deep 
I will lay down in the driveway, on my back 
And say the words of some famous quote or poem or song
That still goes on, through the long and winding years 
Some verse I've heard along my way and placed in my pocket for such a moment

Then I will wonder if whoever penned it, often long deceased in the hospitable dirt, the pillars of the earth
Somehow, somewhere hears me say it, beyond the grave 
And if they marvel still, after all these years
That they, too, are a part of the great, green ocean
And its endless dance of waves

The Old Man with His Camera

There is something about the old man with his camera parking his car above the canyon

When life wears you down like rain on rock
And you only have a bit more time to walk 
The dirt, so familiar in one sense, in another, offers only incomprehension:
How have you walked the earth so long and yet remain a stranger, singing an alien's song?

The camera in your hand, old man, gets it:
Looking up at you, it whispers,
"No, not really...
I'm still seeing for the first time
And it's all divine
In fact, the longer I move through time, I only realize
I had no eyes to understand
I took for granted the miracles of bone and blood and grass and land,
Just like you
So use me now
Use me true
We are only now both seeing for the first time"

There is something about starting a new hobby and using all your strength to lift a camera to the sky
There is something about never giving up
And about having at last the time to turn into the scenic view and stand marveling at all the granite

Now, balanced on such heights of rock and age and life
Some cruel tragedy makes you shake your head and laugh out loud
Now you can see it
And while you could never have or hold or handle any of it,
Like a wild bear or moose you cannot touch, but only stare at 
To stand there and see it all and be in awe feels so close to God
Feels so close to the second birth
So close to the renewal of the earth

Before the Bright, Pink Morning

I don't think the dark night could forgive me
Should I pass through its shadows without quickening my pace or
If I neglected to pause by the woods to see the moon snuffed out by the trailing clouds
Though there is no storm
Or the moonlight removed from the leaves, inked to black, 
The infinite maze of branches bobbling somewhere in the breeze, though I can no longer see them 

All things are coming apart at the seams and always held together
And though you and I are passing through, we at least slow down enough to see how marvelous the evening is
The mystery unfurling on every side like a flood that will not subside until it has searched out every mountain copse and crevice and every far divide 

We have so many reasons now to take ourselves less seriously
And in that laughter—that bright, sad joy—everything finally feels of its true weight, at last, its right size 
Not heavy, not suffocating, 
Just warm and rising like a night heavy with its own invocation
And the necessity to give vent to all its prayer 
Before the bright pink morning

Charlotte, Jumping from the Rock

She must have stood for ten minutes on that high step of stone, alone 
While all the trees were so patient, as if to put her at her ease
And nothing stirred, not the sky the rock the breeze 
As she stood, trying to breathe, her body close to shivering in fear, which she pressed down 

The rock she stood on, asleep for ages and eons, slept on still
And though rockets launched within us, we mimicked that rock with our own bodies, still as the water
So as not to startle our little girl
Our beautiful one who, her body tensed, 
Balanced between two worlds: who I am and who I could be 
She struggled with all creation to let go of that fixed rock, that high place, that sure standing ground
Looking down, wondering what would hold her, should she let go 

Always, this is the pattern:
We stand on rocks in the wilderness wondering about the journey, should we let go

If you are blessed, there are loved ones close, to love you
But there are times when even they can't touch or hold you
And you know, somehow within yourself, it's for your good
We come in company, but there are times we must make the pass alone
Into that gap which, this time, is simply the wide swath of air just in front, and below 
The water which will thrill our bodies, freezing us with all the cold we will not even feel or know

Because we did it
We leapt
We let go

So our daughter soared through the air—more beautiful than a heron 
And rose from those waters like a fiery Phoenix, full of grace
A smile, so well-earned, upon her lovely face 

A Liturgy

Once a year, after mannequin season,
I read Shakespeare and then go down to Morgan's and buy bourbon, distilled in France
And I spend a week's wages for women
Then I cry by the river

It's a simple rhythm 
I can't complain;
It keeps me sane

Every month I take a walk by the docks and smell the fish
My God, it's putrid, of course 
And I think, “People eat this!”

It helps 'mind me that life is a great ocean, unknowable, beautiful
And full of soon-to-be spoiling carcasses
They go together, like dark reality
A theater's marquee and
A murder in the alley

Once a week I go to church
I don't listen much, but I do like to see the latest fashions, the women's skirts
And there are times when the old preacher says something that sends lightning to the ground
(There's not much grass around to burn, though, truth be told)

Each day, at night, if the sky is right
I go stand beneath it 
I stand beneath it and hope it's emptying into my belly
Sometimes I spread my arms out
But I never shout

One must, after all, train one's self to hold one's swaying
That's the world way—the hardest things happen alone
And we are like trains barreling through a long, cold tunnel 
Trusting the unseen bend
Barreling and hoping beyond the end 

Give Thanks for the Ones You Get

There was a tree, pure and perfect
Yellow in its autumn leaves
On our way to Capital Reef
Beneath a black butte, in southern Utah
But I could not stop the car 
Because there are time when the clock will not allow it
Or the following truck disavows it
Or my children in the back cannot be asked to stop again
So, we pass the bend, as my mind spins, lungs sighing
A sort of loss like dying 
The tree so quickly passing, becoming
Yet another point of mourning
On that perfect morning, bathed as it was in blue 

So, too, there was light shining through the woods outside Yosemite
But my baby was crying and, as first things are always first, I kept on driving
Just as the mountain preened in the morning light, like a kingfisher catching flight
As everything sang to life around us

The ridge became another photo never taken
Like the spray of heather by the river, in the sunset
Or the geese overhead
Because the road, my bladder, the watch, 
Keeping pace in a procession
Said, “No…it’s time to go"

You must simply give thanks: 
Give thanks for the ones you get, and the others, let go, with gratitude

Say "thank you," and try to stamp them on your soul, 
Those miracles 
Let your eyes linger and engender hope
Pretend you might return (knowing you won’t) 
But even so, know that it's right to go
With a smile, because you got to see it
You saw it, now let it go 

And above all,
Give thanks that autumn unyielding, in unending pictures
Will always bend more photos towards you than you could hold
Blowing down like a house of cards
Any thought that we can carry the weight of gold 

After all
The mountain will still be there
And God's gifts are older than the mountains
Made new each morning
For eyes made hopeful 
For hands held open
For any open, trusting soul 

Lost Bird

I.

I had a bird in Mexico
I don’t remember how—if he fell from the nest or sky or why I rescued him—
But he couldn’t fly,
And so I put him in a shoebox, to nurse him back to health
And naively fed him rice, thinking he’d be fine 
And then I waited

When he died, his frail body, so light and fine, like fire
Stretched in an arch, as if longing to go on, as if in cry, mid-flight 
His beak just open, as if searching for the sky 

And there was nothing but to feed him to the earth in the small cardboard box 
In the sadness of corruption which seemed, as ever, senseless 
After which I looked up into the great sorrow of the desert
Awash in the pain of too much sun and too much seeing 

II.

The pain of others is always an abstraction, so we observe it, but with distraction
Safely keeping our sanity, like a mind wiping sweat and dirt away 

Our pain, of course, is the most palpable reality, concrete and mute of comfort
Devoid of succoring words 

I confess
The pain of that little loss bereft me
Though it seems absurd, I lost some part of me with that little bird  

And

If a fallen bird is worth such mourning, 
How do hearts like ours go on?
In a world of constant yearning
Where you must hold, with both hands, your hope
Knowing the same hands must let go, of everything and all
How do hearts like ours go on?