Tears In The Desert

I started writing poetry in my early teens and was published at university at age 19. I started writing words for worship when I became a Unitarian in 2006. I tried to compile them in a book project, yet unpublished. You may also find my words on Worship Web, the Unitarian site for worship verses.  I must continue my writing.  You may use and share my words with acknowledgment. Thank you.

I leave my tears in the desert.
Though I shed them when I was fully exhausted.
Maybe someday someone will find them.
Even if just the mist in their wake.

I leave empty-handed but wealthier.
One day someone will find my tracks.
Maybe they will learn something.
Maybe they will say I had a heart.

It was hurt and wounded.
That there was life once in place of nothing.
Where they might find something of mine,
I can help make something of theirs.

Maybe they will ask what other things
can take the place of tears.

12/10/2017


---------------------- Mostly At Myself --------------------------------------------

I am angry. 
Mostly at myself.  
For the times I often cannot see beyond reason.
Locked in a gilded cage of establishments.
Imprisoned by impulses and habits.
I am an inexhaustible well of reasons:
I can't. I don't know. I'm limited. I'm weak. I thought....
And I'm angry now for overdeliberating
When what is sought is clear: I need to do differently.

12/10/2017


----------------------- Grand Gestures --------------------------------------------

O Holy Light, save us from grand gestures

the untrue expedient utilitarian ceremonial

Cohabit with us and pierce us with the pleasures

of sinning against each other no more

with pretensions fears and uncelebrated truths

Unbind what has been bound with pauses

May doubt unmake what has been a joyless container

Speak with your force of necessity

Take what we have visually accepted as valuable

Relentelessly shine upon our beings

The nature of you, undiscriminating and caring

Sometimes fire sometimes wisdom

Not so easily ignored, unsealing, unmasking.

12/10/2017

Sometimes all I have is my soul.

And believe me, it is enough.

The hills get steeper.

The moon gets higher.

The wind gets drier.

And none of these console me.

But if I had my soul, they’ll move me.

12/10/2017

I am shaped by what I want to see.

And I don’t want to see justice in black and white.

I want to see flow and tide.

I want to see trust in each other’s why’s.

I want to see dances on the rise.

I want fun and silence, love and innocence.

But I can easily destroy all that with a lack of joy

And the time for myself to really know what I like.

12/10/2017

Don’t give me time to mourn.

I have nothing but small change.

I have nothing but priceless things.

No one can recognize my jewels.

I have all this and you have all that.

But if we want nothing of each other

Who needs this time to mourn?

Who needs fasting and questions?

Who needs sacrifice?

This democracy we speak of

Is but an outsourcing of love to the government

And we need to relearn how it was

when it was priceless yet free

and bad for the economy.

Don’t give me time to mourn.

Give me love.

12/13/2017

Interbeing

I spit on “Reason”. It is not real.

There is only cause and effect.

And awakening only changes cause.

And the West again throws a smokescreen

where enlightenment ought to be.

With reason.

12/26/2017

If only you listened. If only you knew.

If only you felt.

I could speak of unbelievable things

like love.

And I would believe.

12/13/2017

Poem for Nepal I

Each moment I think

Of you breaking into dance as we did

I think of life and how we crazy ones

Cannot be chained in one life

How many lives do you think we have lived?

I, perhaps many, I am tired

Especially when you are close

I feel like rest is the most reasonable act

And love is all that ever was.

Poem for Nepal II

I haven’t written poems in a long time

But I visited you and your beautiful country

Open to all, precious and delightful

What other colors should I learn about?

Tell me all the things that have made you who you are

Even if I have to break into a million pieces of dust all around

Take me with you like the birds let loose in the air

Embrace me like the wilderness in your heart

I am terrified no more of beauty

You have brought them at my feet

And all I could ever do was take them with me

III

How much suffering are you able to harbor?

You my love sick and suffering in health.

My tear falls at this news of your lonesome

Up in the breeze, into the cloud you call home

You should know I am healed by your love

Your presence so soulful, sometimes annoyed

So mysterious, always unabated in your faith

That we all make a difference by being ourselves

Like the scar you have borne on your face

Is nothing but part of you

And is part of the powers you have on me

02/21/2018h me