Little child
You run in the street
I will crash my car

Aware of the dangers
Only me in a sea of cars

I hold you as you wiggle
But the cars pass

People don’t have the time
For you
Little child

You can’t speak
To tell your story
But to me little child
You are a pearl

A black Escalade
Can we trust
The good Samaritan

I tag along
To keep you safe

Driving around the corner
You are safe
I find your mom
Running

Blank stares
Go home
And she comes

I say
A little girl
A tablet
A a floral dress
Playing in the street

She’s mine
You say

Follow me in flip-flops as I run
And you walk
Who is in a rush
Pass my car
A parked hazard

There she is
Safe
And back in your arms

Thank the lord

You sit there and cry
Squeezing your hands
tears on your cheeks

I wish
I could
Make the pain
Go away

I wish
I could
Tell you
It makes you stronger

But I can’t
Lie to you

Stopping at the store
To pass the time
Broken wheels
And cold hands
Lines forever long

Brilliant little flowers everywhere
Dripping dew
Rolling crystalline core
Shattered in space

Walk hand and hand
Stroll around the stones
Find the center
Retrace

An unknown rainstorm
Catching us unaware
And we shelter

You are lost in the woods
A mystery to me
I sit and wait too

A moonlit walk across
Passing a bench in a cove
So perfect
To not be touched

A crumpled bag
Carrots and cellophane
We part ways

She told me it was lemongrass
And you could taste it
Pull it up from the ground and there on the roots
see the little onions

To see the world through a child
Is an delight
You remember how much it teems with life
everywhere

How the forever question is
always, why

And you are confronted
with your own ignorance
Of the deep intertwining causes
that make up the shared fabric

As well as the wonder
You are also confronted
With vulnerability itself

Why life must start so fragile
On it’s journey
Is a mystery to me

To be able to imagine
Another world so clearly is
An amazing gift that is lost

Imagination drips through the floorboards
And sinks in the dirt
To be rediscovered
when new life sprout

To know pain is to know how close you are to reality.
How you can touch noises to it’s dark face.
Inescapable.
You live from this one perspective.
It can only be shifted so far before it slides.
And falls off.

The only savior is in the destruction of ourselves.
Or the uplifting of the other.

To escape
To embrace
Or to become.

Don’t let pain lead to suffering
And suffering lead to dread

Any one moment can be taken in quick succession one after another
Or else that’s what they tell me

To wish to live without a tongue
And to never taste the bitter juice of life
Is to wish to live without pain
And never taste the honey too

Unbalance is cruel
And is a wonder life
Does not crumble from guilt
How dare it not know
And not care

Separating everything into it’s own space
is a method for both tenderness and flexibility

What I wish more than anything is for you to be able to raise up your head
To the stars and know that fundamentally to live
even in pain
is objectively
A curse,
but even more so a gift

One that you can never know again once it’s over

The lost hours forgotten
Between the things
We must do

Sitting and waiting
is made awash
but it could be something new

A thousand little sorrows at the end
because each moment
was lost in oblivion

Each moment is excellence yet discovered
A brilliant explosion waiting to be
found

To take a narrow frame
is how we were trained

A filter letting the gold through
and only keeping the mud

If only you could see
The brilliance in your soul

The purity of potential
And peace upon the earth

Attainable in your heart
Lost for words

Complete reconnection
With you

When’s the last time you felt
something so strong
you cried from joy

I wish tears were common
And stoic temperament
allowed the melting of sorrow
into pure joy

The friction of beginning
Eating hours of time
Stopped from expressing
The soul of mine
Reduce friction
and then just sing

Forced to start,
A trickle turns to a surge
The damn breaks
And the water flows.
Feeding everything it touches
Connecting the apart

We are only our thoughts
And to give them up is the sacrifice of our minds
and our souls
To write is a reclaiming of who we are
To parse the complex and dig to truth
is what makes us

To accept what we are fed sickens us
And we wilt
How could this be untrue
Can I get there myself
Break it down, and call it yours
Time spent without deep consideration

is wasted my friend

The gentle willows by the pond
Cover me below
I will take your branches
Stripping them of leaves
Weaving a tapestry
And tying string

Water of green and fish of gold
Bumpy roads ridden over
As fast as I can
Without making mud

Backward figure-eights to prove my skill
Bestowed trust

Water chases me as we laugh
Back and forth as it runs toward us
Go go go

Hook through worms
Fish the size of torsos
Or the size of hands

I pluck the apples of life
Throwing them with a plunk
Grabbing and hoping not to be
stealing their lunch

I drive and proclaim I know all
Emotions build
BRAKE
I ride and proclaim I know all

A world away I play