That Day

What will it be like, that day,
when every last living thing
that has ever frightened us,
annoyed us,
gotten in our way,
impeded our progress,
incited our hunger
or lust for killing,
or just loved us too much
with wild eyes,
has been exterminated?
What will it be like, that day,
as we sit on our barren, lonely piece of earth,
pounding the dry dirt to dust
with our angry fists?

(March 17, 2017)

Early This Morning

You imagine emptiness
or all-pervading presence,
it's all the same to me,
a vast loneliness,
a vast sadness.
And beyond me.
I imagine myself in Christ's arms,
as Mary held Him after the crucifixion.
It goes on, it goes on,
the separation,
the holding.
Tomorrow I hold Christ
in my arms.
it's all the same,
tear in tears,
rain within rain,
water everywhere,
the emptiness within the presence,
the presence within the emptiness.
It is almost more than I can bear, and
more than I can comprehend,
the emptiness, the presence,
the sadness,
the loneliness,
all
slipping away as
the rain runs off the grebe's back
and into the sea.
The wine returns to water,
the drops to the whole, as
sunlight plays on the shining sea and
cradles me in eternity.

 (April 6, 2017)

River Daze

Sunset approaches.
My little boat tugs at the anchor line,
confused.
A steady wind pushes one way,
the flow and the distant tide, another.
The boat trembles and rocks,
finding no easy accord.
I don't take sides, and sit in silence.
A beaver swims from shore.
Nearing the boat it elects caution,
and quietly slips beneath the green water.
I watch the smooth, polished ripples that remain
...and slowly sink back into it, the reverie.
Traffic sends white noise from a distant levee road.
The cosmic angles and geometries of illumination slowly decline,
bright, tenuous lines etched in the space around me.
Ah!
The beaver returns,
only to vanish into a dark, brambled bank.
On the shore, those trees still with sun
acquire a patina of dull gold,
and those now without
begin the slow transmutation into lead;
This pastime of mine, I now see
has put me at the center of thing.
Yet watching the sun glow red
and sink into the dark line of trees,
I see upriver, downriver,
not one other has come out
to witness or celebrate
the end of day.
Perhaps it is too peaceful an act, I muse,
while the waves and wind 
weave a mesh of the orange sky.

And it still is true...

(from August, 2013)

Middle of the Night

I rise in the middle of the night,
to read poems in the bathroom
until my restless mind finds diversion, or
detente, from my relentless negativities.
When, at last, I turn out the light,
a unanimous darkness envelopes me.
It's OK, though.
My heart and my feet, in their blind wisdom,
know the way to bed,
and I return to your warmth, as a ship
returns to port after a long, perilous voyage.
You throw an arm across my chest,
like a hawser, mooring me
to the dock of you, and draw us together,
until I am home, I am yours,
and finally, and once again,
at rest in your calm waters.
I once was lost, but now I am found.
It's OK, I murmur to my self,
it's gonna be OK.