Enflamed

May the fire in the sky awaken echoes 

Of the fire in your heart 

To do and be good, 

To care for the lost, 

To give what you can, 

And to resist and persist 

 In your search for what’s true and what’s right.

Global awareness

Those of us who grew up with globes 

May have been imprinted early 

With the awareness that we are all connected. 

And even though the names and shapes 

Of some countries were always evolving, 

We had a sense 

 Of which lands were mountainous 

 And which were deserts, 

And some sense of what it must be like 

To live there; some care and curiosity 

 For the Other…

Wholly ordinary

I was just heading for the door 

When this arrangement caught my eye: 

Not the vase, or its contents, 

Which are there all the time, 

But the way the sunlight 

Cast upon the wall 

Sets it off. 

How can we, like that light, 

Draw attention to the beauty of the ordinary?

If only…

If only we could walk on water, 

We could follow this meandering path 

To where it unites, then separates again, 

And then combines once more, 

And find it easier to imagine 

That what’s broken now 

 Could be once again made whole; 

 That the divisions that now plague us 

 Could peacefully resolve 

 Into a new and healthier unity…

Community art project

My little town has an aging fence 

 That’s about to be torn down 

And so the invitation came: 

“Let’s paint it before it goes!” 

The results — like the humans who participated— 

Are a mix of charming and beautiful, 

Poignant and humorous, 

But one thing’s for sure: most of us 

Will be sad to see it go.

Observing the familiar

It’s a familiar path; 

We walk it almost every day, 

But rarely pay attention to 

The way it keeps evolving. 

Whether it’s a walk in the woods 

Or steps to a refrigerator, 

A bedtime ritual or a trip to the store, 

We do it without thinking. 

What if today you were to notice; 

To be present; to observe 

What has evolved; what’s different 

Or even try another approach?

Slide into darkness

October, and the golden sunsets 

Become not only rare, but masked, 

As the earth begins to turn her back 

On light and color — at least for us —

 And the sun slides sooner 

And further into darkness. 

Hard not to feel our country’s sliding, too 

And wonder if spring might never return…