DO NOT FIGHT THIS

Come, let 

the violent spring 

rain again

from inviolable clouds
to bewilder wrecked field edges,
foggy lakesides,
drab embankments;

to the mute
slate gray pools
eclipsing dank park lawns,

the indistinct dross 

gathered penitent 

in street curbs,

the piles of rot and
aborted treebuds
clogging up the sewers.

From every heavily devastated
bit of nothing special,

a new force
waits in its benevolent
artifice to emerge—

so undeterrable,
it cannot be doubted,
co-opted, bailed-out,
reversed, or contained.

Come, let the violent 

spring rain again

its benediction:
that absences
are generative too—

proof

that even our conspicuous lack

can be productive.

ODE TO WHAT NOW

I guess try
to praise what's left

praise the kindling spring,
the warm wind
and increased light

praise the silenced
alarm clock, the rolling
back over, the balled-up slacks
and dusty gym bag,
the dormant blender (and instead)
the slow soaking of egg yolk
into the holes in your toast

praise the free video
conferencing app, the not-too-
steep learning curves
of home school and home cooking,
praise wax candles, bathtubs,
and yoga mats

praise the masked neighbors
waving right back
at you holding hands and
wearing matching track suits

praise the quiet highways
like the newly emboldened birds do,
praise the clean air, the poverty
and wealth of distraction,
praise your cool stubble
and scruffy long hair

even try your best to praise
the lagging instantanaeity of news,
those experts who pound their fists
and argue, the voices of fear mixed
with those few of complacency
who together illuminate
the most judicious middle path

praise the simple sound
of singing in harmonious agreement,
praise the very strange thought
of shared truths and a common ground
praise the discombobulation of fate,
praise this united state of our solitude—
and while you're at it, I guess

try to praise your tenuous,
ever-changing
hold on this existence—unless
or until that moment
when you can't

NEVER TRUST A SECULAR HUMANIST

In times of crises such as these,

they say never trust 

a Secular Humanist 

who professes no allegiance 

to a religion or a nation, 

who seems little more than an

undocumented alien 

rapping a strange mix 

of apoplectic adoration
on street corners, or else 

spray-painting eco-friendly sci-fi 

superheros known as
ex-men on the chapel ceilings—

mutant power: bootstrapping 

spirituality—abracadabra,

kingdom-phylum into 

genus-species, thumbs and fingers 

into the shape of a W 

and used as an implement
for digging up the patterns 

in our fetid dumpsters of statistics 

in order to make lurid
apocalypse art, using
all the smuggest numbers
and most disobedient words.

LONG PAUSE

Once I told you I just wanted
what everyone else
was afraid to—to be both
narrow and deep,

slender and bold,
less a shape than the path a solitary
arrow takes—a straight line
with an admirable slope.

But it's been a long time since
I've taken up space,
and now I'm not sure what's left
of that inclination—

even though so much of its math
will always remain
in the sound my voice makes 

wavering on the phone. Tonight

I wish I could stand back up
and ride those waveforms
into the glow,
the bright ranks of code,

the strings of positive 1s 

and neutral 0s, which I still 
have memorized—and I hope
are still written all over your face.

OCCASIONAL POEM

With so much out of reach

now, I reach 

for simplicity.

Don't want to say 

any more 

than I need to.

Don't need 

to be Tolkien 

to imagine "all's not lost."

Now is not the time 

to weave 

a complicated plot;

now is the time to ration 

all the skillful 

means I've got.

Only the melody 

ought to get a solo;

only a splash 

of Scotch for these rocks 

Only the sharp keys 

of short words 

to pick the padlocks 

on my big thoughts.

STANDS TO REASON

When we cannot kiss,
but we can still choose 

to walk around and listen—

when we can still talk
and sing about
the extent of the doubt
and mistrust we must be oozing—

when it seems like there is
no room left
for the size of the thoughts
we must keep holding in,

but there are still open windows,
mellow sun, cooling rain,
and soft wind blowing—

it must stand 

to reason: who needs touch,

as long as there still 

is feeling?

SOMEDAY SOON

When early light streams
through the trees, spangles
cold sidewalks, forging fresh steam;

when robins, sparrows,
church bells, all singing the hour
carry much farther
on the still, silken air;

when the mulish dogs pull
their stiff sleepy masters faster
and farther across empty intersections

in which no meek child
is being tugged by the arm
or herded by green-yellow guards
to the yards of their prisons

and no overdressed-yet-
disheveled men and women
are rushing to catch up
with insensate trains and busses—

all of this may yet be welcomed
as one chooses to greet
a special occasion

replete with ripping
arrangements of blossoms,
cool thin mimosas, gossamer strains
of traditional song:

all the carefully curated trappings
of some universal day
of easeful celebration—instead

of what we encounter today—
the habitual triggers
of daily anxiety,
dread, and suspicion.