hope

March 12, 2023

ONE MORE, MORE

That there is another shooting
comes as no surprise,
it is commonplace now, expected
and there are only questions:
how many this time, what
kind of weapon was used, what
motivated the shooter to do it.

What does it say when we define
mass killing as requiring three
or more dead bodies in one place.

The body of the single victim
is no less dead than the mass killed
but death by gun is so commonplace,
we roll right by it unless we know
the victim or the location holds
special significance to us.

So we have ceded our humanity
to the Almighty Weapon, all
we have are prayers, for we
are now too tired to be angry, and
mass anger is our only hope.

March 11, 2023

ACCESSIBILITY

Technology has afforded those of us
with impairments the ability
to more fully participate
in the world around us.

However we can never lose sight,
a painful use of the phrase
in my case, of its imperfections.

Perhaps it is merely anticipating
the future of our species, as when
the phones captioning decided
a somewhat elided Marsha and Barry
was in fact Martian berries.
As crazy as that seems at first,
looking around at how we
have laid waste to this planet
exobiology and exobotany
may be the last and only
hope for our species, but
I do wonder how they will taste.

February 26, 2023

WITH KNOWING

With knowledge comes something
but I cannot remember what
my mother told me it was, or
perhaps it was a teacher
who said it, but I can’t hope
to tell which one it was, I
cannot remember some
of their names or in what grade
it might have been said.
I don’t think it was in college
or graduate school since by then
it was assumed we knew
what came with knowledge.

So I am left to look around me,
and see what the knowledgeable
have wrought and consider that
perhaps with knowledge comes
chaos for we have quite enough
of that, or a lack of compassion,
we’re big on that one, so maybe
with knowledge come a hidden
key to making this all right, but
I cannot for the life of me find it.

February 16, 2023

A MOMENT

It is 1952, April, and I
am handed to the woman.
I am wrapped in a thin blanket,
the tall man is standing beside her.
I do not recall this, but this
is how it must have happened,
she finally a mother, he
a father despite infertility.
I do not recall her, the woman
who perhaps never held me
once I exited her body, who
hid me for nine months.
I mourn her now, knowing
she acted out of love, with hope
for me, but only the headstone
is her touch on my hand.

First appeared in Constellations: A Journal of Poetry and Fiction, Volume 12, Fall 2022

February 5, 2023

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

They can have sharp edges
that wound on contact, some cuts
so deep they leave lasting scars.

They can get stuck in the throat
until you feel you can no longer
breathe, no longer cry out for help.

They can lie there, an
aggregate always acreting
and yet rejecting any meaning.

Or they can, carefully chosen
present great beauty, offer
hope, promise freedom.

They are the currency of poets
and writers, and they chronicle
our history and our lives.

November 10, 2022

THE SAINT OF UNCOUNTED NAMES

A desert again,
always a desert
and she the saint
of uncounted names,
her crying eases, no
smile appears for this
Madonna of the coyotes,
her orange-orbed eyes
shuttered against the
slowly retreating sun.
Once her tears watered
the desert sands, mixed
with the blood of a Christ
now long forgotten, trans-
substantiated into a spirit
we formed in our image,
no longer we in his.
The Blessed Mother
watches, holding hope,
holding space, holding
a serenity we cannot
fathom in our search
for divine justification.
She remembers, she mourns,
for what ought to be, and waits
for the windwalkers
to pull the blanket
of stars over her.

First published in Liquid Imagination, Issue 52, October 2022
http://liquidimagination.silverpen.org/

August 31, 2022

SAYING AND SAYING AND SAYING

At least once again this morning
some talking head commentator
told me that it goes without saying
and then said whatever it was
that went without saying
for ten minutes, twice repeating
the thing that went without saying.

I trust he will become aware
that he and his ideas will,
henceforth, go without seeing
by me and hopefully others.
But I guess that last comment
would go without saying.

June 12, 2022

COMING BACK

He appears, rising from the horizon
the sun at his back, as if a mirage
taking physical shape and form.

He approaches slowly, your eyes
straining to separate him
from the sun’s growing glow.

You wonder if his is a holy man
robed and with a staff, walking
to announce his long awaited return.

As he grows closer, you realize
he is a she , older, in a flowing
dress with a walking stick, not

the returner for who you wish,
but your faith requires that you
continue waiting in hope.

June 2, 2022

DEEP

Deep beneath the Arctic ice
the whale songs shimmer
in the harsh light
of a frozen sun.
We strive to hear them,
hear nothing, hear only
our thoughts echoing
through cavernous memories.
With thoughts of what was,
what we wish had been,
we are ambient noise
in a universe which
cradles hope, craves silence.
Dolphins dream of days
when the sea was theirs,
lives lived in a slow paradise
a world the land- bound
would never comprehend
even as they laid waste to it.

First published in Zephyr Review, Issue 1, May 2022
https://zephyrreview.com/issues/

May 15, 2022

CALLING

In the dark heart of night
time is suddenly frozen,
the clock’s hands stalactites
and stalagmites, unyielding
denying the approach of morning,
leaving the sun imprisoned
under the watchful gaze
of its celestial wardens.

It is then you appear,
call out to me, beg me
be silent, not asking
the lifetime of questions
I have accreted, providing
my own hopes and
imagination for answers,
but you have faces, not
those of that weekend
but of other days, she
younger, in college, he
in a college yearbook
at a school he never attended
save as part of the ROTC
contingent of the Air Force.

I bid you farewell, finally,
and time again takes motion
and morning welcomes the sun.