MAKING WAVES

    after Joan Mitchell

It rises up

under a foreboding

menacing presence

that bears down 

like a dark cloud

gathers all its elements

into an arch and

with full force 

crests, ready to 

thrash and crash 

but instead brings 

itself to a halt.

Yes, why not simply 

step back from the 

the surge—the sadness, 

the anger, the loneliness, 

the shame—

 while it mounts inside

with the intent to strike 

and just watch it, become

a witness to 

the sweep and texture

the push and pigment

of its intricacy 

of its handiwork, so delicate

so well-meaning 

in its application

and accept the humanity 

in it, the art of the impulse

and pause and ponder  

at the desire to make 

and not make waves.

FLIGHT

Running along a path

all of a sudden

birds out of nowhere.

From oak and bramble

the dirt and gravel

along the pavement

eruptions of feathers

and flapping.

Every stride and step

creates a hatching 

spontaneous presences

a winged litany 

that quickly disappears, returns

to silence, absence again.

Nature's sleight of hand.

It has a name: flight.

BLACK AND WHITE

Crow 

is close.

Blizzard’s 

behind.

An image of 

black on white.

Ebony in flight.

Ivory drifts.

UTENSILS TOO BIG

Hell, it’s been said, 

is where we feed ourselves 

with utensils too big

and we starve

because no food gets in.

But what if hell was discovering

we were the implement

used to induce 

a perpetual state of 

starvation in another,

what would you do?

There you are

doing your darnedest

trying to feed and nourish 

someone you care about 

because you want them 

to let you in, to open up. 

But they can’t!

There you are an accomplice

to a feeding that devolves into failure.

How do you make sense of this—

that you are helping to fill a hollow

where a heart should be

but isn’t 

with just more hollow?

How do you digest this?