Mother Is On The Beach

The old man rocks himself to sleep on his bed.
The light stays on...his wife used to turn it off.
He can't bring himself to bother.

Quanyin sits atop her lotus blossom,
emptying her vase of nothing, always,
and nothing ever spills out.

A dirty faced boy asks important questions.
He expects clear answers. His first mistake.
Just who does he set you up to be for him?

There's an e-mail in your inbox and you have
no idea how it got there. What pushed the buttons
over there is pushing the buttons here, where you are.

Mother is on the beach. Sand trapped under toe nails.
Salt on fair skin. She tries to smile for father, to let out
the joy she felt since she had her little girl. She's stopped.

I am rocking with the old man who cries on his bed.
My nose runs with his. My tears stream like his as I
pass out. I wish I could turn the light out for a moment.

Where is she to help me with that last thing before sleep?

For Cathy On Her Graduation

Moon Flower

Your long stalk deep into the ground.
Lanky branches serving abundant leaves
to gather light, energy, prana.

Draw up. Pull it up, into your bud all that nourishes you.
Extend with everything you've got. Let out the beaming
yellow flower, mistakable for the sun and shine with your smile
chasing the source from East to West and East to West again.

How delicate, vulnerable that smile is, but never-mind. Give it
anyway, even as it turns cold, the yellow fades, petals drop to the
Earth
for your children's seeds next season.

You will stand, grey and white atop that tall stalk of yours...
grey and white like a proud moon resting on a cane of sugar.
You will stand and nourish the next season for us all with the
sweetest seeds, the gifts you drop behind for us simply by being
you.

For Ana On Her Birthday

Nirvana in Atlanta
blow your warm love wind
and push the tramontana of
our despair to the seas until
at once the vox humana rings and
comes accord. Your song through us
as manna once more.

The Censor

Common sense is
in the mind
of the common censor.