Summer Moving

Boxes and bags scattered about a few tiny rooms.. .

A brilliant wife dwells upon the communities about her,
considering how far hands will reach to take hold of the other,
to protect, care, and love the lepers of our time,
with fuzzy memories of southern clouds,
and a list of quick, vague, and shaky numbers.

Set about farm animals, clicking wheels, and a frogadile,
a young son learns to sit, screaming to fight off the sleep,
bathed in his own saliva, he giggles and stares,
his eyes dart left and right, his ears tuned to new melodies and beats,
so excited he forgets to eat.

Invisible lead holds hostage a new home
with endless potentials scattered about the old factory workers,
the new wanderers, hopeful refugees, young families.
Arts at the theatre, walks in the park, and rumors of zumba
in the dusty band room of the age old school

Learning to be a neighbor, dreaming of community,
and grasping for old friends at the edge of emerging visions,
while trying to dance upon hot, cracked, uneven sidewalks.
Locking our doors while extending our hands,
imagining what it would mean if everyone mattered.

Waking before the sun to ride rickety tracks of hellish repute,
to the center of the powers, a brightly lit ivory tower
with young princes and princesses vying to be absorbed into networks of influence
with me as their uncertain, wide-eyed, guide,
different than the village classrooms full of the humbled sons and daughters of the fields.

The clocks frantically swing their arms side to side,
new paint is splashed upon old canvasses full of fuzzy sketches,
the times run amuck, the colors vibrantly uncertain,
and nothings as it seemed before.
New home, new work, new studies, a new year.. .

fearfully and wonderfully set before us.

Baby's first digital words

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Friends

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

- Anaïs Nin, from a diary entry in The Diary of Anaïs Nin

The Peacemaker's Apology

Peacemakers

are not peacemakers

when their desire for peace

overwhelms the harsh reality of hurt

deeply inflicted over years

one layer upon the other

I'm sorry

for words spoken

in search of harmony

when dissonance is real

adding notes will not remove

the chaos will only become deeper, wider, and

while trying to build a common ground

I heap extra dirt and debris over bleeding cuts

covered up does not mean faster relief

i'm just hiding

myself from you

closing my ears from the grinding sounds

of frustration

stuck between the gears of our love and friendship