HOW TO RAISE KIDS

First, you admonish them 

for having filthy hands, 

for crawling on their bellies, 

and never wearing shoes.

Then—after they learn to stand up, 

to clean up 

and suit up,

and say they believe you—

then, you sell them sanitizers, 

autonomous cars, 

and mink oil polishes—

all with no doubt 

as to the cleanliness 

of your conscience. 

GIVEN

Let us not, in the red face 

of the heat 

and our struggles, 

say nothing at all 

in the service 

of reverence;

let us instead quest

for the generousness  

to admit—

that beauty 

should exist 

far beyond its utility

in the hideous way 

our pangs are made manifest; 

this 

is what they

would have meant

by grace.

BAPTISMAL

Long ago—

perhaps 

the first time 

we were carried 

kicking inside—we should 

have realized

this cannot be right. 

That the truth 

was a sin,

and the sin 

is was truth.

That our bodies

were all weight 

and fat heat 

and fierce light.

While hell, 

on the contrary, 

felt like cold 

chrism 

and listless rooms.

Like asthmatic organ tunes,

and that cruel 

and repetitious symmetry 

of hymns.

WHAT THE TREE TOLD ME

Roots deep 

in hell,

branch tips 

scraping heaven;

trembling 

with the littlest wind, 

stiff in the pose

of perpetual giving;

impossible

to kill,

but willing enough

to die 

again—

that is what it will take,

as season blunders 

into season,

if you ever expect 

to keep living.

ENDURE

Day after day, 

rainstorm after rainstorm, 

afternoon 

after humid bluegray afternoon—

the avocado in the kitchen

(tough green, in memory, as 

the skin of an alligator) 

has been growing imperceptibly 

softer; 

but the large pit 

ensconced away at its center is 

hard as ever

and poison to eat. 

Take note of this, I think

to my own aggrieved species—

keep your composure;

there is nothing we can do 

in time 

but yield 

to one another,

but never 

will they take 

our dark heart—that small enraged oval 

that none would dare conquer,

that is the part

which is ours.

CONGRATULATIONS

We did not want

to be the raindrops 

falling 

on the plain—

same color

as the background,

so amorphous,

too mundane.

So we made our lives

complex

as the snowflakes—

delicate latticeworks

built around 

dirt specks; 

and now, none 

is like another—

just like 

every other.

STRAY

Little drifter, 

you've been a stray

a long time—

why not keep still, 

trust the gravity

in laughter, 

curl up 

on my scale 

and see what you weigh?

You've made oceans

of byways; why not 

spend the night? 

It is not true 

that you don't know 

what you want;

what you want 

is to know 

what it is you require,

to ripen into love 

with this thought,

or that one—doesn't matter;

what you need

is to grow 

a heart pain can poison

before you can fertilize

that heart's 

desire.