Enormous

You have never seen me
I am too enormous.
I have never even seen myself.
Nor have I seen you
as we were created
as we were intended
only fragments can be seen.




June 2019 - I have different spheres: people know me from work, from my childhood, from college, from church. Some know of me more than they know me—they see me on a stage, or they read my words, or hear of something I’ve done. And I often find myself responding to assumptions about myself, neither positive nor negative, but...off. Limiting. Small. I think we all have experienced this; and we all do it, too. Even to ourselves.

Sensation of a nap in her father’s arms

I cannot photograph the sensation:
your face pressed to my heart
after the bottle, before a morning nap,
eyes slipping closed, your hands & arms
abandoned, with everything, to my care.
Your breathing calms to regular rhythms
but I linger, savoring, storing this exact second
and the warmth of your cheek on my arm...
Somewhere deep and safe.
Somewhere I can find it forever.

Blueberries

Blueberries are little worlds
I eat them in handfuls
sometimes, like the internet
or when I’m patient—
one at a time, between my fingertips.



June 2019 - Thanks @__snoked__ for the random assignment & art direction.

Petals

Petals earn the praise, but
sunlight needs to fall on the leaves.
We are the same: tend the ordinary
not only the celebrated self.

A Child’s Pockets

When I was a child emptying my pockets,
I’d put it all in my palm
picking through my treasures
and one or two I would put back
before throwing the rest away.

Okay now

Sometimes
let now be okay
just for now;
let tomorrow be itself.
Memories are both
particle & motion:
so light shows us how
to let it be okay for now.

Water

Wise water bends in peace
without breaking her surface:
her kindness calms, her
strength quietly absorbs
the violent chaos that

propels us forward.

Phil

when i feel like you, i imagine
you're still waiting in your tan
90s honda civic, parked outside
that hotel in Pacifica; and i am
pretending to go inside.
but actually, that night
after you taught me how
to drink coffee with milk in it
because it gives it—substance;
after you told me how you knew
God when you played the saxophone;
actually, i climbed that hill in the wind
and met God myself on the cliff
watching the Sea endlessly assault
the relentless stones below.
we spoke of you, about the heritage
of grandfathers and their children;
i perched on the cliff, daring death
if the Sea air had ever let up:
i would have plunged like water
to dash on the sharp coast--
you drove home that night,
thinking God knows what, and
before we ever talked again,
just you and i, your body killed you
those many years after.

Cracks

When I was a kid
the retaining wall fell down
along my dad’s driveway
after a rain storm, spilling
mud and stones everywhere.
Out came the shovels
and we rebuilt it all
stone by stone.
It was a lot of work;
there is no reason to expect
less of human hearts
or relationships.
The deep cracks
take time to surface;
& once we find them
they are hard to mend.

Different

Do not shut up
your different words
inside your different heart.
The ever droning chorus
all around you, all the same
is a practiced nothingness.
And you are more than nothing,
standing out: a measured mystery
worth more than the expected things.
So stand! Let us prosper
by your different heart;
hold high your different head
and teach us all.

Worth

Someday I will have to say
as she tests my love the way
teenage daughters must do:
every drop of her is worth
an ocean and more. But first,
to convince her it is true,
I must begin now & say
to myself, the same.




June 2019

The Descendant

I speak to myself sometimes
from ten thousand years ago
and he is amazed:
so few of us die young
yet we do not cherish life;
so many of us have wealth
and yet we lust for luxury.
He misunderstands the challenges
of our miniaturized world as it is—
dissected, digitized, wired up:
we know too much, and too many people
to know anything, or ever be at peace.







June 2019

Screams

You wept and screamed at me
all of us hiding in public
on a bench, you and your brother
unleashing Hell upon your father.

Perhaps I was being too stern.
Your mother caved; saved
us all, bought you lunch
and those goddamn toys.

Driving back in a silent rage
I furiously interrogated myself
but found no explanation
possible, nor necessary.

Your mother’s family laughed
it off; perhaps I am a joke.
I was a picture, I suppose: some
cynical Rockwell’s dark Americana.

We moved on, all of us, back to
our videos and playthings; except
I left my heart on that bench
where you killed me.






June 2019
I’m not often caught in a situation where I’m incapable of solving my children’s tantrums. Today we left a gift shop with two screaming toddlers and I found us to be a public spectacle I couldn’t resolve. It hurt. Parenting is often very easy for me; but when it’s hard, it can be very, very hard.

this moment

live in this moment
but also in context:
wisdom calls for you
from beyond today—
which happens once
the exists forever.






June 2019

Mansions

I’ve slept in mansions
and never photographed the walls
but the alleys & fields
where I’ve laid my head—
are pictures I keep in my heart.




June 2019

Array your skies

array your skies
in regiments of clouds
to shrink the Earth.
make your love legible
even for us—we who know
about supernovas, genocide
plate tectonics, divorce
crucifixion and credit scores—
array your white ceiling for us
make our world small
and close us in
so we can hear you.



June 2019

Night water

I hear the boats coming in
summer days closing down
recalling night on the water:
beautiful as day might be
the mystery of a lake after dark
rivals all.
                 Years ago, my pipe
smoke mixed with words
between my brother and I
as we gazed at lights across
some undulating expanse;
we saw villages, hillside cities
cast down in morning light
but then, in the dark: beauty
and intrigue on the shore.
Sometimes it’s best not to know
every thing: to see the world
not nude, but clothed in dark.





June 2019

The rain (an update)

The rain makes
no demands upon us
—so it is at peace.
Not so, we with the rain
although we ought to be.





June 2019
Years ago working in customer service I realized my exchanges with rude folks were much easier if I had no expectations of them. I wrote a short poem about it, of which the lines “I make no demands upon you / so we are at peace” have been echoing in my soul ever since. Every time I try to explain the story, though, my friends protest. In the context of rain (where I am the rain), perhaps it makes more sense: I acknowledge myself as an object in another’s universe, and make no claims on their behavior or character as to how they will interact with me.

Rey

She is a strong, slender thing
hitting wiffle ball line drives
chasing the boys with a hose
living yearlong on this lake
where wealthy people summer.
I search her face for the future
wondering—fearful as she is not
of the ways we knock down kids.
A mighty child is never poor
but she will learn it someday;
may the God of lakes and baseballs
preserve her fire spirit all the while.
“Go get them, Rey,” I say, handing her
a bucket to soak the boys—she turns
to see who said her name, and I
repeat it, with infinite meaning.






June 2019
On vacation at Gina’s family lake house, the neighborhood kids came across the backyard to play. One of them achingly reminds me of the wiry, smart mouthed, hard nosed little girls I feared and worshipped growing up; I wonder who those people are today, and if the world has wasted its chance on them.

She shines

when she shines
it is clean upon
your skin—is
innocent unto
the Earth &
all her beasts.
yet she burns,
fades, returns
all to dust.

so are we all
to one another
time and again.





June 2019

Wind on the lake

Water speaks to me of
brutality. Modern life unfolds
on manicured dry land; but
when the wind whips up
honest children fall silent
adult faces grimace, and
water, rushing past, threatens:
“You don’t belong here.”







June 2019

Timesmall

Punching through an airport sky
reminds me: Sol shines
unperturbed by clouded gloom
unblinking since long before
the dawn of human hearts.
Every tragedy and triumph
of the boardroom or the soul
follows lost kingdoms & histories
jungles dried into African steppes
lovers whose bones are dust
—great Sol has seen it all
and always will.
I am relieved
to be so small
in Time.






June 2019

Silence

Sometimes I am silent
even in my secret places
without knowing why.
Perhaps I am waiting
for dreams not yet imagined;
listening for the voice
of a small, sincere joy;
mourning the future
or some forgotten past—
really, who knows. But
I trust the unknown silence
now; it is a gift
and means no harm.






June 2019

Freya

When patience gets her tail pulled
small feet get scratched.
It doesn’t make Frey less patient,
to teach young Oliver manners.
I learn from this
how to Father patiently.






June 2019

Reflection

Sometimes you are a vestige
of a person and an age
they’d rather leave behind.
Other times you are a window
onto a world made of their dreams.
Be kind, and let them be.
They can only cost you themselves.






June 2019

Imperfect love

Have mercy:
you are loved
and you love
imperfectly.
This disappoints
more than it should
(speaking rationally):
we cannot help
but compare
ourselves to God;
our loves to His—
penny whistles
to a symphony.






June 2019

Thunder

Trapped in time
we see ourselves
only in the lightning
eyes wide as thunder
cascades, crescendos,
and unaware of Peace
stealing in behind.
This is a moment;
this is another; see
how quickly we proceed.




June 2019

The Giant

The child is a giant
Laying down across my life
A range of soaring stone hills
Around and across which I have built
The roads and villages of my years.
He wrote “I love you” in crayon
To judge and bind his future Self
On paper long lost to time, now
A tattoo scrawled across my soul
For times I would not love:
The giant stirs, tilting the Earth
Toppling castle walls, burying forests;
Slowly blinks huge hillside-eyes
Raised on one elbow, stares
Across the horizon into my face.
I cannot match his gaze; he knows me,
Has expected me all these decades.
He returns to his slumber
And I repair my toppled bridges,
Clear the landslides and
Love again, as I told myself
Those years ago.





June 2019
When I was a little kid, I went through a period where I was concerned that I wouldn't be a Christian when I was older. The problem was that I knew I wanted to love God at that age, but I didn't trust my future self to feel the same way. And what is the point of committing to Christ at 7, if I think I'll change my mind when I'm in my 20s? In response to this feeling, one time I wrote "I love God" in big, permanent-for-a-7-year-old letters in my journal. I wrote it as both a current statement and also, in my mind, to bind my future self to it. For some reason I recalled that strange event recently and I wanted to write something about it.

Heartbearts

Our hearts beat
quickly when the heat
is unexpected.
For good or ill.

In that rush
nothing becomes us
until it is said
simply, “be still.”







June 2019