CATHEDRAL

leaves, heart-

shaped, veined

with green life

raise up 

their open hands

offering light

back to the light

a roundness

cloistered inside 

this arbor 

of intimacy

ripens, burgeons 

into a brightness

an awakening 

a turning, a taming 

this secret garden

is the architecture

the cathedral

we live in

that always 

enfolds us

no matter 

the season

if we let it

feel it

and hear its

whispered hymn:

grow, grow, grow.

THE VESSEL

I am not 

the sculptor.

I am the clay,

let’s say,

from which 

forms

a shape 

I’ll call

humility:

the capacity 

to hold life’s 

imperfections

imperfectly.

When I let 

the excess,

that can look like 

pride or humiliation,

fall away 

along with 

the compulsion 

to struggle, 

what’s left is

the giving into

the mystery,

the hands 

I cannot see,

that can make me 

malleable

when I let them.

When I do

their force and grace

creates 

the contours

of a consciousness 

I will carry 

but in no way contain.

LEAVING DODGE

The best we can do 

is to make the attempt.

To bumble our way 

toward some destination 

we’d like to believe 

is a Bethlehem

when Dodge-in-a-dustcloud 

is like the trailer 

we didn’t know 

we were towing 

keeps glinting 

in our rearview mirror.

EARLY WINTER FRUIT

Ripening takes time.

The persimmons in my backyard

are teaching me this:

the yellow-orange 

slowly darkening

with each day,

the limbs drooping

a little more

as the fruit gathers heft

among the green- 

veined leaves.

What I don’t know is

when do I harvest 

these plump orbs, 

pluck them from 

their gangly branches?

And…where else in my life 

is there a ripening  

that deserves my attention

that only a season

like this one can offer

so slowly, so meticulously?

Behind what branch

and leaves, is it hiding?