SPECIAL DELIVERY

Though fear 

may have brought them—

the items ordered—
and feels awkward 

and anxious
upon arrival,

it comes with all the ingredients 
for a healing to happen.

Its algorithm, like Instacart’s, 

is an intelligence

that can delivery us 

to the present moment

faster than most things

as long as 

we remain open

to its errand.

AFTER A DOWNPOUR,

nature’s tears 

bejewel a cobweb, 

beading 

every intersecting line 

with the intricacy of 

Idra’s net. 

a breeze turns 

the silken finery

into a breath 

between branches 

and the tiny worlds 

of water within into 

a shiver, a sigh. 

so many reflections, 

vicissitudes of sameness 

shimmer across 

a single design, 

consciousness, cosmos. 

oh, to be this porous, 

self-satisfied 

and present 

to the harmony of one.

TEACHER 

Sometimes

it is so hard

to see 

that you are there,

that the lesson

I am meant to learn

I am already

in the middle of, like

some grade school equation 

that has me 

at the front of the room

squirming, sweating and scribbling.

But I don’t see any of this:

you, my hieroglyphics, my bumbling fingers

pressing the nib of chalk

into the cosmos of the blackboard.

I am too busy 

being the problem 

instead of the solution.

And that’s the real problem to solve.

THE MIRAGE

At times, emotion 

and feeling

radiate off us 

like heat waves

from dunes 

in the desert.

Though others

see these emanations

as fear or anger

and become entangled

with them, they are 

nothing more

than mirages, a heaving thirst 

for a deeper love

that arises like a gas

from the salt 

in the sand,

from an oracle 

in the earth-wound,

from the trauma terra firma 

living in the body-mind

of flesh, bone and blood.