Highway thoughts pt. 295

Down the chute of nature
shoot we complicated machines
humans cased in metal boxes
fighting for inches. Speed
along in bubble galaxies,
my comrades: let the slender V
of open sky above, and fog
on the early morning highways
remind you of your souls.

August 2019

Isolation

See how we are all alone,
Moons apart and set adrift
in orbits looped on one another:
a symphony of separation.
Yet like Luna, who does not know
the tides she casts upon the Earth,
we too must overstate our hanging
high and isolated in an empty sky.

August 2019

Impurities forgiven in a sink

My son dips his brush
bleeding color into clear
as do we all; all of us
into one another. Whether
poison or beauty, into jars
murky or crystal clean: we drip
our paints together.
When the jar turns inky dark
my son grips it with small hands
(but we are all clumsy
with forgiveness) and
dumps the water in a sink,
refills, and starts again.
There is a blue stain
in the yellow paint pocket
carried by an innocent brush
to smear a scar on paper;
it cannot be undone.
I dab the yellow with a towel
and it is pure again. But
the towel is thrown away
and the paper saves the stain.
And my own soul, murky
with selfish poisons: does He dare
drip this into His oceans?
Or can His son dip his brush
into my jar, film rolling backwards
to absorb my inky sins
and deposit them in
some unspoken place?
Or pour me out in Heaven’s sink
and drain me into Hell; only let me
be clear and start again.

August 2019

Perfection

Instead of perfection
give me your broken things,
your scars and flaws and cruelties.
I know myself well enough to see
the rest is forced. We are
by nature deeply flawed;
still, give me nature: I’d rather
the blisters and splinters,
the hail and the thunderclaps,
than landfills piled high
with disposable perfection.

August 2019

Massive life

It’s hard to tell how big the sky is
glimpsing just its whitecaps
above a parking lot horizon, but
it is fatally massive. Life, too,
seems short and can be cruel
but in the end I think we all find
it to be the longest thing we know.



August 2019