grace

Hail Mary

full of grace

you are

filled with grace,

with grace

fill me

in streams

of yes

draw me

to where you are

to where He is

among wo-

men,

yes,

among men

blessed

fruitful, grace-

fully gliding

through the

dark veil

at the hour

of yes

to my

death,

amen.

(29 December 2012)

Life...by itself

“Life…by itself has neither purpose nor fulfillment.“ Thomas Merton

Fill my day
with soft breezes.

I hear the birds call;
singing bees
swarm
with the pleasure
of the sting.

Oh! Let me breathe deeply
the innocent air!

Minute by minute
force my life
through thin membranes,

for in the end
sleep will lead me
to bright seas, dreams
of fading mist;

then
fill it full
with your love!

(28 July 2013)

silent night

stones in darkness

the cold wind sighs.

O hear my prayer

on this silent night!

the faint breath

of waning life.

November 1978

i.
November lies in wait, violent month
stripping life from the garden
wind ripping leaves from living trees.

So much can happen after the harvest,
life can be broken,
the grave made rich.


ii.


Kennedy rode exposed in the cold Dallas sun
when a bullet ripped the November air, and
dark winds ran riot through fields of heaven,

dirty cyclones scattering dust
into our stinging eyes

and we cried under the black crepe
draped over blank, empty windows.























iii.



November, 1978, loomed large
in the twilight haze as we waited
and uneasily watched the news.

In thirsty Jonestown
the November heat swelled
the bodies of black children,
huddled in the arms of still mothers,
empty paper cups strewn on the ground
dripping purple Kool-Aid, happy drink for a hot day,
poisoned with bitter megalomania.

The stench of fear
permeated Geary Boulevard,
filling the looming, empty halls
of the People's Temple.

Protected by the glass wall of my television
I observed this distant slaughter
my eyes spared from the sting
of personal tears.


iii

But November soon became personal,
and quickly took my father
and left me stunned,
empty and cold as frozen Ohio.




Bad comes in threes,
and in my rented car,
on the way home from the cemetery,
I heard of bloody mayhem in San Francisco,
madness splattering City Hall,
in the thick blood of Moscone and Milk,
struck down on a cloudy
November day.

(22 Nov. 2013)

Changes

Bird song rises 

in pure, liquid waves

as golden leaves

arc, twisting

to the ground.

Heavy gold

must fall.

October heat

will give way 

to winter rain.

Yet inevitably life flows 

like the breeze

rising from the broad sea

to the high Sierra;

grey clouds rise

and heavy snow falls.

All living waters

give praise.

(5 Oct 2010)