TYPING A POEM
With a click of some keys,
something flashed on the screen,
just like the sorrow
that flashed through her life
long ago.
He was six years old
when he suddenly died,
a dazzling boy
dead in a street.
She typed another word
to send out some more memories,
and then more words,
and more,
and soon the screen
was flashing with words
like small signals
in darkness.
EVERLASTNG
It’s everlasting, he said.
The bedspreads, the fans,
the flowing winds, the skies
that stand across us like sentinels.
It’s all everlasting, he said,
even the thoughts tossed toward us
like Frisbees
from who knows where,
even the words we say
that sparkle in the sky
for centuries to come.
He said all this
as dawn
decided to speak in the east.
SURELY
Someone said “surely”,
and it started him thinking.
Surely the sun is shining somewhere,
and surely some streets
are carrying cars
where they wish to go.
Surely someone is taking a step
that needs to be taken,
and surely a clock is clicking
with precision
even while storms surely
start their proceedings
in the distance.
Surely girls in
will sing today,
because surely there's music
at the center of sorrow,
and surely these words
will shine,
wither, and wilt
like fall’s leaves.
HILLS
He likes to ride his bike up hills.
He’s lived sixty-six years
and seen a thousand hills,
thinking each one was chosen
for him, a useful hill
that has “
He’s seen hills
that helped his life leap up,
hills that held him
on their shoulders,
hills that left him
as liberated as the air.
He knows how to be happy
with hills.
RHYTHM
He tapped his cane on the sidewalk
as he walked in the park.
He was proud
that his heart was tapping
to the same rhythm,
and it seemed right
that cars were passing
at a similar pace.
There was power in it,
like the power of pages
turning at a certain tempo,
or words on paper
calling out in cadence.
HIS GARDEN
One summer day
he hung a small chime
from the ceiling
so it swung in front of the air conditioner.
He then called up some friends
and said he was sitting in his garden,
and could they hear the chimes
in the breeze. They said
he didn’t have a garden,
and he gave them the gift
of correcting him.
As they laughed,
he looked past the chimes
out the window
and saw flowers flowing
down a hillside.
IN PENN STATION
In Penn Station
he watched people walking.
Some were strolling
in a soft way,
like summer slowly walks away.
Some were rushing
as if sunshine and peace
was just ahead.
Others were thinking while walking,
throwing thoughts around them like sparks.
He, however, wasn’t walking.
He was holding all of life
lightly in his arms,
but the people walking past
weren’t watching.
HOW DOES IT HAPPEN?
In the park
they came out from some trees,
two kids holding hands.
How did this happen?
And the bird
that brought itself down
to the grass close by,
by what mysterious means
did it find itself there,
feeling the grass against its legs,
listening to the world wandering by?
And the trees nearby,
turning their arms to relax,
can anyone say
if something special
said they should do this?
And my legs just crossed themselves.
Does anyone know how or why?
TIME OUT
One day he decided
to stop getting new feeds,
favorites, and services.
Instead, he sent himself
down to the roses in the park.
He promised the sunshine
he would stay silent.
He listened to the wind’s words.
The roses were resting,
as was the planet itself,
as was the whole soothing universe.
So he sat on the grass
that gave its services
as softly as the roses.
HEALING
He knows that to heal
he has to be able to hold things
in an effortless way.
The sky holds its stars
with ease, the sands of all shores
hold sunbathers benevolently,
and please
holds a thank you in its hands.
He has to learn
to let himself relax
when he holds a word in his mind,
or a proud pencil in his hands.
He knows
what’s wrong will be right
when he holds
by loosening his grasp,
like the land does
when it lets him skip
and spring in happiness.
.
HER BROKEN HEART
Yesterday her heart was broken
into shards of silver and gold.
It shattered
and the pieces
spread across the sidewalk.
She shook with the misery of it,
but soon she noticed
that people loved those fragments
of her heart. A sorrowful man
found a piece
and placed it in his pocket.
A woman made a nest in her hands
for some small flakes,
and her students took some home
to help them live.
Even she herself leaned down
and let a speck of her heart
amaze her.
A thought floats
through his mind,
then dives and disappears.
Then a thought throws itself
into the sea of his mind
where other thoughts
are splashing and swimming.
Then a thousand thoughts
start sailing along,
their own captains,
capable of following
the farthest star.
Then he sees
that the sea of his mind
has no shores,
that it isn’t his,
and that he
is one of the thoughts.
Then it’s all rest
and recreation.
FREEDOM
It was a sudden feeling,
almost like the rush
of a shooting star across the sky,
or the setting free of sunshine
after days of storms.
He was sitting in the park
beneath a boundless tree,
when suddenly, there it was,
this feeling flooding over him like a river.
He sat still and felt himself
washing away on the feeling.
He let himself be carried.
He had come into this world
with cries of freedom,
and now he found himself free
on this feeling from nowhere,
with nothing important to do
but feel free.
...........................................................
WHAT HE DOES
He doesn’t surf or skateboard,
but he does hear wisdom
when it cries out.
He doesn’t run
with the best and the bravest,
but he does see simplicity
shining in a spoon,
or in someone’s shirt passing by.
He doesn’t go forth
with fire in his eyes,
but he does leave loneliness and sorrow
standing at the starting line.
He doesn’t always
attack his work with industry,
but he does have a shining appearance
when snow is falling.
.....................................................
MORNING SOUNDS
The sound of his breathing
is a mystery to him,
as is the sound of the drawer in his dresser
sliding open so he can find some socks.
It’s strange to listen
to the sound of mouthwash
swirling inside his cheeks,
or to the sounds of happiness
and sorrow balancing
and sighing inside him.
The marmalade on his toast
makes a sweet sound against his teeth
as cars speak in soft voices past his apartment.
He’s sure
there are countless amazing sounds outside
that he can’t hear –
trees expressing joy,
beautiful thoughts blowing across the country.
..........................................................
MOZART, STONES, AND TREES
He wanted to play
a Mozart violin sonata with someone,
but since he couldn’t play the violin
and didn’t know a pianist,
he went outside
and walked among stones and trees.
He saw the stones sitting precisely
where they should be,
and the trees taking each other’s hands
as breezes blew by.
He held his two hands out
and they folded together like friends,
and the trees and stones
stayed where they were,
and the time of day
was just what it must be.
................................................
THE BIKE RIDER
He knows all things are his --
the stones beside the roads,
the scraps of paper
scattered in the weeds,
the everlasting sunlight.
The gracious streetlights are his,
as are the unsurpassed coffee shops
and grocery stores he passes.
The swift-winged cars
that carry their precious passengers
to places destined for them,
the school buses with students
like lights in all the windows –
all these,
and the sweetness of his bicycle,
are his.
.....................................................
A MORNING BIKE RIDE
It didn’t exactly get his heart beating
when it started,
just a hesitant summer morning
singing its inconsequential song.
There wasn’t much to praise,
wasn’t much to raise
a smile to a face --
just a silver morning
with its gift of easygoing light,
just a quiet day coming his way,
just geraniums
shyly gesturing
in gardens beside the roads.
.........................................................
LOOKING FOR LIMITS
He sometimes tries to find
the limits of things like love.
Can you love only so much
and then it finishes at a fence
or peters out like a small stream?
Is love like a savings account
that could quietly come to an end,
and then no more money
or love? He thinks the answer
is no, for each day
he rides on a sea
that has no shore,
is borne along by breezes
that never began.
LAUGHTER
When’s he sad or stressed,
he settles himself down
and listens for laughter.
He knows it’s all around him,
in houses across the street,
in towns in his state,
in tall forests where friends
at this very moment
are making merry.
He sees in his mind
a world where one-third
of the people are probably laughing
with light hearts
right at this moment,
this serious moment in his life
when he’s so worried
about one thing
or another.
DEPENDABILITY
One day a wonderful plan
he had dreamed up
disintegrated in a matter of moments,
but still his breath
kept coming in and going out.
Another time, a tragedy took place
in his house, but his breath
didn’t break its rhythm.
Rain fell for fourteen days
one summer, but
it didn’t bother his breath.
His hopes have been burned
to cinders occasionally,
and the love of his life
lost color and passed away,
but his brave breath
didn’t notice,
never stopped being of service.
WANTS
He had thousands of wants
sitting on his shoulders.
One day he decided
to lighten the load,
so he wrote some wants on pieces of paper
and put them in rivers
to roll away to the sea.
Then he threw some wants
into the sky to see them soar
and slowly disappear like suffering.
Some wants were taken to a mountain
where they wandered away
like wintertime,
and others simply stopped breathing
and slipped easily off his shoulders.