The Beata The historian: I found in my research into the records of the inquisition that in the beata’s room sat a pot of marmalade, along with bundles of herbs, fragments of leaves, and flowering plants. On her cell wall, a small icon much like the one in the beguinage’s chapel hung. The beata: I […]

The Ethereal Divine I stood atop a copper-colored cliff, the rocks beneath me cantilevered, forging for me a perch from which I could shape the white cotton clouds into celestial portals. The sky-tunnels that spiraled forth from them were formed from deep blue lapis lazuli and spider-spun gold. I gazed up at them. I let […]

The structure of Let’s talk about the structure of peace. Let’s establish its scaffolding galvanized iron, of course, wrapped in leaves of gold and platinum. The windows won’t be windows at all, but waterfalls to distort the view of the violent world around our construction. And in the universe, the blown brown-flecked seagulls and the […]

Obstructed View The brightest stars burn beyond my fence, a world beyond the length of my arms. Both my age and the weather are growing colder. Still, there’s a local breeze on fig leaves, a duet of birds, a dance of butterflies— a wannabe paradise whose fruit never falls beyond the chain link, whose bountiful […]

Her Drop of India It was. As he Said of stone. A temple Silver carved Up doors. Ceilings of Lotus bloomed. Outside In dirt a Kolam. An entrance Ran itself. ‘Round A spiraling she. Bent A doorway. Through millions Over thousands— Years to bow. As he said It would have been. Flames Of camphor billowed […]

Ongoing There is always a tiny hole the thin green line left by the setting sun on the sill of the window left open Consider the horizon’s lids — glossy, gleaming lightly separating each moist, parodying the other twins in slow conversation a kiss prolonged perched on the verge bending over a sleeping child peering […]

Beauty for Breakfast 1. When they come for me, they will not be able to find me because I’ll be hidden in stones and oatmeal and three minute words. I will not die — Beginning to remember. 2. Morning times. Morning crimes. Morning rhymes. 3. Somebody lost a glove, ………but it is not me. ………………………Mine […]

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett   Fail better, Sam? But what if we just fail worse or simply fail the same? Is life nothing more than a trying and a failing a hoping and a waiting a no-win game? Surely, Sam life’s something more than obeying […]

The Fig Tree It’s the biggest fig tree in California People get off the train to take pictures of it Children play around its shady umbrella Animals burrow inside its mammoth confines The sky rains on it and the sun gives it light The homeless have a place to shelter Its ecological system is vast […]

Phoenix Ascending Out of my agony, I came. Out of the fires that swallowed me. I rose from the dreary egg of ashes, a shattered pyre of scorched wood and bone. I first thought of the landscape, and my eyes came into being. There was no more fire, and the tears erupted and fell through […]