THE MAGICIAN 

There was no tuxedo, 
no top hat,

wand or handkerchief,

rabbit, coin or deck of cards.

Had they been a part 

of his daily routine 

he might have seen himself 

as the magician he was, 

directing his gaze away 

from his own denial. 

Like a disease that does not 

detect its own malignancy

 

his greatest trick was keeping 

his own sorcery from himself. 

Cunning, baffling and powerful, 

the magician was most dangerous 

when forgetting became 

his French drop.

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.

 

POISON 

From our elevated perch 
the oak below was a swath 

stretching across 
every contour of the canyon.

Intermittent patches of red 
burst through the sprawling terrain 

like a rash, an epidemic.
It’s poison oak, she said.

If we were on the ground,
beneath them,

looking up,
we’d see vines 

climbing the branches, 
higher and higher, 

leaves burning 
their little fires.

Somehow I knew the canyon
was a metaphor

for something else  
that had grown up inside 

the cradle 
of a pandemic.

At the center of what we saw,
a ghost tree,

bare, silver-white—
more metaphor:

the stricken spirit of a thing 
that had lived and died

too quickly, surrounded by 
a growing poison.

DAVID 

Underneath the thickness
of too much thought--

and it may feel like marble,
layers of stone

you have to chisel through--
is the discovery: the figure,

naked and strong,

head cocked,

a knowing look 

in the eye,

poised with slingshot in hand,
ready to make a stand.

Just cut away everything 

that isn't David.

What you'll be left with is

pure listening.

In other words:
Intuition.