erinys

maybe today
i am dusted with shed feathers
and spitting out bones.
maybe i have seen
another mother
disheveled, red-eyed,
clothes wrinkled from long hours
curled in a hard chair
by the bed
of one dying too young,
too suddenly,
and needlessly.
maybe my own eyes
are red with anger
and grief
and it makes you
turn away
don't.
don't dare.
you need to see.
if you have not seen
a loved child
in a forest of tubes
and pulsing lights
slowly leaving
that watching woman,
if you have not stood
coffin-side with those
saying farewell to a girl,
looking hard at her folded hands
and not--oh, god, not--
at her shattered skull,
if you haven't seen this
you should
so you can know
just what the unthinking, lie-fed,
worship of guns,
of phrases,
of money,
really costs.
i can tell you
what any mother knows,
that a child's life,
any child's life,
is worth more
than anything you set
in the balance against it.
don't turn away.
don't dare to look away.
don't.
there are bones in my throat
and there should be bones
sharp as claws,
in yours.

diagnosis

as i would put forth a hand
to stop the flow of blood
from accidental harm,
so i wished to stop the pain
that pours unceasing
from your heart
where it lives in endless dark wells,
a daily stain,
unfaded and increasing,
an evil childhood spell
written on its victim's very brain.
there is no counter-charm---
my good intentions,
all my love or care,
are powerless to staunch
the bitterness that dwells
immortal there.
nothing that i do or am
and nothing that you say
you wish for can stand
against the rising flood,
weaponless, you wound yourself
again with each new day.

"thoughts and prayers"

in ugly times,
don't be facile
with your prayers.
be willing to look
a little deeper
into the murky under layers
of what went wrong.
prayer, by the way, isn't only meant
to be a solace or a sop
a way to make your sorrows
or discomfort stop---no,
it is a heart-cry to all that is,
a rending hope for better,
and a promise to make
things so...
the gods most smile on those
who feel another's pain
and also work
to see it not occur again.

meaning-full

looking for meaning
in most things
may be
if not mistaken,
then at least
unhelpful, because it brings
such sorrow.
i've made a list
of places not to look:
anywhere that you forsook someone
or were forsaken,
where you were yesterday
or hoped to be
tomorrow,
the news, the television
generally---
it's a voluntary prison
we put ourselves in daily.
it's best to look outside---
outside ourselves,
outside our walls
and noisy streets.
look to the slide of raindrops
down a tree,
the way the bark shines
and colors appear.
a hawk may take a rabbit
for its meal,
and there is some grief,
but not like our human world
where one who takes a life
is not a hunter
but a thief.
look to the calls of birds
the way their chorus greets
the dawn,
look at a leaf in the sun
shining like a gem---
all the things we barely see
and barely hear
because of noise
and daily grind
and false comparison.
see the world
for what it is:
beautiful.
it need not have been,
but somehow is
and that evergreen perplexity
of beauty being
is all the meaning
that i need to see.

playing the trump card

whether we know it or not,
we have lost our way
though some rejoice
in voices shrill and hot
some feel it like the shadow of a destroyer,
a thing that will eat itself
after it consumes all else.
in a world gone suddenly cold and strange,
today we are not who we thought.
all mirrors are cracked,
we are ugly to ourselves,
changed or changing,
and what we shall become
no one seems to know---
we all reap in the whirlwind what some sow.
time and past time to rise up,
standing ready with light and water,
for the way we go
leads through dark forest minds
and burning desert hearts
where we are beset by ghosts
we never laid to rest,
fathers who didn't know best,
wild hungers never fed,
appeals to arid gods
weaned on stone and sand.
something has died,
and we don't yet know
what will burn in its passing,
what shall come of its ashes---
a black egg hatching light,
or a long and fiery night...

the arc

they say the arc of the universe
bends toward justice
but lately i've been thinking
the bend of that arc
depends
somewhat
on us

i've been thinking
that time isn't all
it's cracked up to be
and that the long arm of the law
too often fires blindly
(but not colour-blindly)
and oh, my country,
we are failing each other
and our children

now,
when hate stands
on public display
cheek by jowl
with the flag
and the hamstrung bare their teeth
like cornered beasts
we have only one choice
before us---
what do we stand for
(hint: it's not a flag)

the rainbow's arc
bends effortlessly across the sky
light and water combining
in a joyous shout of colour
all we need do is look up
and admire

but the arc of the universe
and its bend toward justice
may need our hands
not waving a flag
but reaching out

how may we
put our hands
together
in love
how may we become
ourselves
a monument
of love
of love
of love

grace notes (at the concert)

it's not that the music wasn't good---
it was, it was so good,
rising up and ringing on the vaulted stone,
it pulled your soul right up through your heart
and let it hover there, tender, open,
overflowing---
it's just that in the spaces between phrases
i saw the people all around
and loved them
because their souls too were floating
like lilies on the green leaves of their hearts
i saw the boy with the nervous tic
gradually stop bobbing his head,
settling into stillness as long as the music
swelled about us
i saw the elderly man who gently patted
his chair in time with the beat,
and i saw his wife watching him
while he, self-forgetful,
closed his eyes and gave himself up
to the sound
i saw the young couple holding hands
as they listened
i saw the shine in others' eyes
i felt in mine
as if the music was bringing rain
to all the desert places in our hearts