The Calling

What kind of name is Seth
or Adam or Rachel? I can't tell you
who but I can tell you when.

Trust this: we are called
precisely what we answer to.

Look at the blackening field
acknowledging winter winds as if
it understands the emptiness

or the heart, nameless
and beautiful suffering
its unheard pain because

it wants to.

What Floats

Another story about a man
rowing down the black river,
his back bent, shifting, a tree
settling into its earth,

resist-less. I routinely forget,
everyday every-man rising
from a bed that holds his body up
while he's sleeping like water

holds its breath, effortless.

Our dreams begin this way,
in shadow first, then delivered
into light-filled waves, rippling
circles of wish & wondering;

all of it makeshift, untranslatable,
reckless. The story of building
a boat, carving its ribs, sanding
its bones, confusing its hollowed

body with hope is almost
believable.

Compassion

Like so many of you,
there are stars, each one
a silver flame strangely
burning.

How terrible immersed
in such beauty and hidden;
the perishable darkness a hood
over our heads.

Dear small lights, sweet
cold bringers-of-joy,
the journey is brief,
the void endless and still

the eyes that catch
your latent brightness
glow.