Saturday, February 20, 2010

attunement

song of light
the blazing sun within my heart,
I see all by the light of my eyes,
anything I do not understand,
I must just not understand
and not despise.

the soft light of mother heart,
the searing discernment of father's
the perfect attunement of brother's, sister's, friend's,
we are on different roads, you and I,
both to the same end.

take a flame within your palm,
close upon it, feel it's warmth,
open now and breathe it in
watch your soul renew and spin
a flower in a flower within
a world within a drop
of water suspended finally mended
a life that sits in the still center
of a careening top.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

first contact

having wandered from his mother,
he walks the lobby into the synagogue
and up to the housing
of the Torah.

he pulls on the cabinet door,
stares at the ornate scroll within, laden with silver and bells,
at the embroidered cloth covering.

"BA!" he shouts,
touches the scripture;
the words within the labyrinth
of rolled pages stir.

he pulls at the tassels
and handles,
pulls harder, pulls and falls back on his behind,
and the books of Moses
come clamoring down on his 1-year-old head.

stunned for a moment,
he begins to laugh, giggle,
shriek with delight.

and a strange musical tone,
a choir of millions in one note,
a simple ringing in the right ear
which never will leave him,
which none of a string of physicians
will be able to cure or explain,
will become his companion and solace in loneliness and loss…

and beginning to feel a need inside himself,
he wanders off to find his mother.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

building lights

building floodlights

surreal through

scratched and worn plexiglass transit windows,

emulating stars,

crosses,

underwater spotlights,

the light at the end of the tunnel

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Nefertiti and other mentionables (discipline)

Nefertiti,
the Mistress of Sweetness,
stole
cookies
from her father's
pantry
as a little girl;

Moses was a
compulsive gambler
at age 14;

Gandhi
corrupted all the kids
on the block
with lurid stories from
the Mahabharata...

it is not from
discipline
that discipline springs,
but from devotion
and passion,
from radical turning on
and turning in.

grace of growing things

grace of growing things,
tender and green,
touch my spleen with your
skillful means;

and turn to tongue
my brain undone,
that seeks to speak
yet being meek,
will so long wait
and cogitate
until the truth
has passed my tooth.

Monday, February 8, 2010

pall

pall over land of plenty,
geese soar above hoods
where the county hands out
public housing
like a miser hands out
Christmas bonuses,
draining patience
with paperwork perpetually in transit,
with paper walls,
inefficiently drowning out
sound of gunshots.