Jennifer

we stood outside the bakery
in the bright grey light
the morning after grad
we just stood
too tired too numb
to feel the weight of this goodbye
or maybe we already knew
we’d carry the heaviness later
we shrugged
because there was nothing to say
a hug, a quick smile
then you left to catch your flight
and I walked home alone

never is a silly concept

in some simultaneous today
I drove a truck through the emptiness of the Yukon
slept in until 11:00
and played that piece from “The Piano” perfectly

in some parallel lifetime
I hated reading
moved every two years as an embassy employee
decided I didn’t want to get married

in some alternate world
humans have colonized outer space
can name more than 300 colours
and didn’t invent the internet

poetry is orange

wake up to a faint orange
sky with a green quality
too bright to be ignored, cheerful,
unlike this morning’s paper
most of which I want to cut
out and discard. it does not generate

what reading poetry generates,
a quirky orange
atmosphere that doesn’t cut
up the beautiful quality
of the day on paper.
newspapers are not cheerful.

poetry is not cheerful
either, but it generates
food for the soul, a paper
can’t, all black and white, no orange,
even when the writing is quality
(and if its good writing it cuts).

am I irresponsible to avoid that cut
naive to desire only cheerfulness?
maybe, but I know that the quality
of my life is generated
by all things orange
and magical, not dreary news in papers.

what I want to read on paper
is words all cut
up and mixed with orange,
ignoring punctuation and syntax cheerfully,
in an effort to generate
poetry of the first quality.

mine isn’t always quality
and most of it will not end up published on paper,
but I know that inside it generates
some part of humanity nearly cut
off and forgotten (cheerfully)
by people not caring that words have colours, like orange.

the colour orange has a quality
so cheerful on printed paper
it heals cuts it did not generate.

come home to me on the wind

a moon, almost full
the lily just half open
I am without you
a lone goose looks for her mate
come home to me on the wind

(mis)communication

she smiled, picture perfect
laughed, hitting all the right notes
but her smile spoke boredom
her laugh translated into tears
of frustration

the Christmas Eve Service in the Basel Cathedral

the men’s choir sang old carols
to red sandstone walls
where the shadow of Erasmus
nodded in time
to flickering candles
the rhythm of liturgy
eight hundred people
gave birth to hope
as the bells called
“joy to the world”
into the centuries.

part of me

I travel through their lives
for just nine months

they open private portholes
one by one
emerging souls reach
for a hand to hold

I remind them again and again
they carry their own wisdom
watch as they grow heavy with love
at last let go of insecurity

I travel through their lives
for just nine months
but part of me
will always go with them

I am most real

for this hour my feet follow
the heartbeat of the universe
I shed dead skin, lay aside faces
it is here, in these petals
that I am most real

ambition

if the work of my life
is nothing more than this:
I loved (bravely and foolishly)
and reached for grace

I will lie down in eternity
with contentment.

graduation

the spring sunshine helps
make all the summer goodbyes
go down easier