Serious Life
Life, you’ve noticed, is serious.
In all seriousness, it kicks
your butt, then, in all seriousness
laughs about it. Life is serious.
Life has at least two suits
and a hundred pairs of shoes.
Life spends its waking hours
worried; vigilant; staring.
Life won’t take “no” as answer.
Life takes no prisoners. Except
when it does. Life is a bargain.
Faustian. Life is a dilemma,
and you betray yourself. Life
has tools–hammer, machete,
ax. Life, you’ve seen, is serious.
It’s out to beat you until you
know there’s no you to beat.
Apophatic Project
How to say she would
run the horse beneath
the low branches of
the Thorny Locust
until she fell off?
How to explain she
planned to build fires
until the most concrete
of bridges fell to embers?
How to say she would
wander across whatever
border until every shape
wore a foreign costume?
How to explain
breaking every tool
she so expertly
wielded, until syllables
stuttered unintelligible
screeds and jokes?
How to say it’s about
burning. About riding
through low branches
until ends become
completions; going
on until she hears
the trees laughing.
Why I am a Unitarian Universalist
As a good Pentecostal kid, I read the Bible. I read of a God who condemned the oppression of the poor. I read of a Messiah executed for threatening power structures. This is not what I heard from the pulpit. I could not reconcile this dissonance in my mind. I felt alone.
At college I found a small group of humanists who called themselves Unitarian Universalists. They were joyful people whose values of commitment and compassion I admired. I was not alone.
I became a poet. I began to think that all scriptures are part of a vast and beautiful human project to capture compassion and awe. I began to believe that scripture is creative writing. I began to believe that the writers of sacred texts were poets. And, like me, all were bound in understanding by barriers such as time, geography, and language.
I am a Unitarian Universalist because I believe religions are very human attempts to find meaning and purpose. The texts and practices that have accumulated over time are at once sad and glorious, brutal and loving.
We humans, all through time, have been whistling in a graveyard. And writing poetry.
Subtile Body
“There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom.”
Frederich Nietzsche
Hard to think, perhaps,
this old man lives
in “subtile body”–
looking at my lines,
looking at my heft,
beer belly & broken teeth,
but I am;
I do . . .
Subtle body where
the accidents fall
into place because
I have seen the sacred
pattern of a life
botched, yet
all the universe gathered
to catch me in
my drunken fall.
Hard to see, but it’s
here–subtle body in this
old man, sway backed
& bowed legs
born of a child too
timorous to eat;
not enough; too much;
all I could think of. Yes,
my subtle body is subtle,
difficult to see
through the curtain of
fat and age,
yet it’s there, ashes
of mistakes, life
in a pattern
I see now, subtle
pattern in the ashes.
Seeds
The cattails I brought you
have burst long ago
& sent their fluff
seeding wherever
it was you threw them.
If only I may let go
so flagrantly
as the cattails,
as you;
as wind;
the past;
the seeds.
Hats & Maps
1. (in the thick)
Once an argument could cut
like a two-edged sword. But
that’s old hat. The headgear
now is helmets. And arguments
cut like shrapnel, every way.
2. (in the city)
I like it that my map
talks to me in a gentle
voice while I drive. Not
like we fallible persons
at all. When I lose
direction, she walks me
back. Recalculates
calm as I swear and
cringe into another
lane to turn around.
3. (in the boonies)
I send nurses now
to find my father
on the farm he so
doesn’t want to leave.
“The GPS,” I warn,
“won’t find it. And
the road signs have
all been shot.” That’s
just the beginning
of an explanation.
4. (in the hat trick)
I strap on my Kevlar,
wishing for a newer
model. I strap on my
sword, knowing it
can never cut enough
ways. When the map
stops speaking; when
every weapon fails;
then, sometimes, the
sharp edges rest,
and the old aches
allow a deep breath.
