GILLS

If you find yourself

suffocating

in a pond

of your own making,

gasping for air

in the shallowest of pools

that keeps shrinking

in all around you

day by day,

hour after hour,

minute by minute,

don’t fool yourself

into thinking

that you can’t drown.

You can.

And you will.

You will choke

on your own breath

if you are not careful.

And it won’t be

the air’s fault, either.

It will be yours

and the way you let

the oxygen in.

Maybe its time,

to shake off your gills,

grow a pair

of legs,

stand up,

leave the puddle behind,

and put some crampons on

and start climbing.

Don’t go it alone, though.

Be sure to bring

a city of Sherpas

with you.

You’ll need them.

You won’t survive

without them.

‘Cause you can’t carry

what you’ll be carrying

all by yourself

while also acclimatizing

to air as thin as faith.

SKINNY DIPPING*

What if I didn’t try

to be right

or to win?

What if I just

hoped for

a fair hearing

and gave up thinking

you into the role

of Villain or Victim?

What if I set

my story aside

and started instead

with just the facts, ma’am!

so I didn’t kill safety

right from the start?

What if I went so far as to

disagree with myself

and plead to have you  

disprove my point of view also?

What might happen then?

Would you see that

I am not out to nail my

opinions on a medieval cathedral door

or chisel them into a granite tablet

as if they were dictations 
from a burning bush on high?

Maybe we’d be advocates 
instead of adversaries.

And maybe then, one fine day, 
in broad daylight,

we could strip down 
to our skivvies

and go skinny dipping 
in the same swimming hole

where we’d find ourselves 
entirely un-stung and unscathed 

after serpentining our way

down the thistle-fabled path 
of listening.

Inspired by Crucial Conversations,

by Paterson, Grenny, McMillan, Switzer

THE FONTANELLE,

it is said,         

is the way

back into       

the body

if we ever        

leave it,

and have        

the fear:

how do I          

return?

Ironic,

that re-entry,

after an out-of-body

or near-death experience,

would be through

the same

“soft spot”

that never

completely closed,

after we made

that first passage

from womb

to delivery room.

A good reminder:

remain malleable.

Never harden.

Always stay open.

Remember that and

we will surely be

fountainheads

to ourselves, again.

FABRICATION

I was there.

When the Red Sea parted.

When the sales clerk cut

the blood-colored fabric 

down the middle

with her extra-sharp

scissors. It was a delicate

procedure. First, folding

the 8 yards

lengthwise, in half.

Then pinning

it all down

a section

at a time. 

Then the blades:

snipping through 

the cloth, all along

the crease.

All this, for

a friend of a friend

who was shopping

for props

for her granddaughter's

3rd grade play

about the Israelites’ flight

from the Pharaoh,

from Egypt.

All this, instead of

what I thought would happen 

that day and didn't: lunch 




overlooking the Pacific

at Land's End


with a friend

as old as Moses.