OUTSIDE MARICOPA
December 10, 2024
The desert is muted
in the dusk;
the whole of day
absorbed into the depth
of a granular sea.
The desert is too quiet
for any creature to speak,
the only chattering, done by
teeth in the blanket of cold blue
as the sun shines its last.
The earth fades to shadow
and its shape blurs in shroud,
blending and melting all
that is atop it into one
dark, disfigured, drifting mass.
Under the veil; newness
in its own right- a world
solely comprised
of substance and outline;
a wave washing over
to make dim the eye,
a wave washing over
to teach what it is to die.
There are bones in the blue,
a starved cow, a crashed
hanglider, a quiet poet-
all fossilized in the sand.
The poet asks God
can these dry bones live?
And He answers;
different you are not in this shadow,
you and these bones,
dusty and loose,
in need of new breath,
misplaced and confused;
if you may continue living
the desert will too.
THE OLD WOMAN DOWNSTAIRS
December 05, 2024
The old woman downstairs
cries out for her dog
who is once again gone,
my heart spurs
at her desperate voice
But this episode happens
every week and without fail
in the night or day
from the stairwell she wails.
Her voice haunts the tenement
it echoes through the forest
hollow and yearning,
like a siren mourning science
and its sudden loss of being.
I hardly see her;
only in the afternoons
on her small porch
with quiet pooch in arms
both satisfied and lucid
softspoken and sweet,
she offers a gummy smile
and I return a wave.
“Why bother the neighbors?”
I think,
with such regular rouse
as a dog run away,
but I shake my selfish bend
for many times
I needed my fear heard too.
Sometimes, when I write
at my desk
and awaken again
to her strained elden voice
and laughably loud shouts,
I begin to wonder
If the dog is even gone.
She is quite old afterall
and her memory surely weak;
the reason for such lit eyes
when I lift that wave
every other day, for the first time.
Sometimes, when I listen
by the window
I consider to interrupt her,
but remember all there is
to cry about, and how
little of it I do.
Search and search for
that scruffy old dog she must
and hear her howl I will,
as I hope she finds her loss
and her resonant cries
mourn for mine.
TIME OF NIGHT
November 11, 2024
Lord, thank you the warmth of the Sunday trees.
And thank you the sucking gasp
While my tightly pressed heart
Inflates itself again with life.
It is not always sunrise that holds the hope
Like the crucified raises the empty tomb
Sometimes it's night that cradles us in its womb
For whom shall we wish to grieve with more than time
The Father of pain
And the mother of joy
It is time God’s greatest grace
Despite its quiet ripping of a young boy
Time is the Night
That swaddles he with sleep
That allows a break in the plight
While the boy counts up his sheep
Time who does the bloody work
Of mending his scraped knee
While dismaying him its slow push
Toward the grown up he may not want to be
Our hurt father time
Mourns for us too
As we slap its wise face
And run fast from the night’s deep blue.
THE SUN IS BURNING OUT
October 19, 2024
And the destitute time has arrived
With no wine and no myrrh,
No blessed gift but sorrow.
The genius has failed
And reparations unpaid:
God has been dead awhile
And blues long since unmade.
The pens are much sleeker now
But most still hold their ink
While we speak more than ever
And from drama scarcely blink.
A third of the angels fell down
And landed behind mics
While we retreated from the desert,
And no longer stepped the boots with spikes.
The meridian is now a paradigm
And tattered jackets a style;
Sweeping up the dust
But slipping on smooth tile
Yet man does write
And someday may rise,
A song for song’s sake
Or a poem for our demise
One who beckons God
To hammer the railroad ties
As we steam on, fragile in our train,
And wait around to die.