They tiptoe around back,
velvet flanks broad,
flashes of cream tails,
not raised in alarm,
but wagging in whispers,
graceful necks dipping for moss
or lifting for leaves.
I nearly missed them,
these soft, silent, beauties.
Don’t you, too.
Keep an eye out for the
nearly silent beauty,
still nibbling away
at the underside of shade.
It’ll be what keeps us going,
keeps us lifted and searching,
ears twitching, feet pattering
toward goodness and mercy.
Find and follow the tender path.
There’s still softness to be found.
her rosy-nosed crispness, her cold velvet touch,
her lace on the windshield, her flakes on my cuffs,
her jolly-hued sweaters with seasonal quips,
her Santas and snowmen and icicle drips,
her snuggly soft slippers and warm cozy throws,
her cinnamon coffees; her ribbons and bows,
her gingerbread cookies, her oh holy nights,
her crusty-white windshields, her frosty-toothed bites,
her poinsettia flowers, amaryllis shoots
her cranberries, citrus, and other tart fruits,
But mostly I love her for gifting me you
that icy midwinter from out of the blue,
the city-born guy to the small-town dark horse —
Hallmark Christmas worthy — my happiest verse.
They come in threes, they say. Bad things come in threes. And sure
enough, bad tidings rode in on their serrated fonts in swirling
impatient portals: an unholy trinity of cyst, malignancy and mass.
One slung sideways, like a fanny pack across a kidney sack, a second,
mortared to wind pipe, spewing ash into places unknown, a third sucking
marrow from mammary glands like a motherfucker. Unsanctified settlers,
all. Mother of all that is Holy, who let in the false prophet, the devil, the
beast to cast rings around x-rays and pockets full of poison, ashen shadows
on MRI scans? All that rot and stink and bile planted like rancid Easter eggs,
tangled spiders’ nests, like hissing snakes in sacred sanctuaries… Such blatant
blasphemy. Such sick sacrilege. But then, while bad things come in threes, so
too, do good. And we believe in the Good — that Triumvirate of Truth: Faith
and Hope and Love. And the greatest of these is Love. Love lends strength and
courage to fight. When we harness for God the energies of love, then love will
help conquer all. Together, we’ll banish the bad for Good. Even the dirty, rotten C word.
I’ve always loved starlight.
The dusty sprinkle of the Milky Way,
the brittle glitter of constellations,
the renaissance glow of old and new,
of reds and golds and faintest blues.
And the flames of candles, too.
The shimmering flicker of a haloed wick,
the undulating liquid light that peaks
and flattens, fizzes and flares,
always moving, yet still so still.
So, of course I love Christmas —
the dotted-light stitch of houses
and trees. The starry-night feel
of them, as if we’d dredged the
heavens with a honey wand and
pulled its sweetness down to our
hearths and homes, our hearts and
bones kindled with a thousand twinkling
kindnesses, a thousand twinkling well
wishes, a thousand sparks of love
of comfort.
of joy.
My son swims in jell-o-bright water,
a nine-year-old Achilles dripping blueberry syrup
from sanctified limbs.
Fluid and free to flip his hair, sashay his tail,
he bobs along, suspended in color-soaked dreams.
Sweet honeyed daylight dapples his skin in flashes
and splashes like sequins (not chainmail) like scales
jazzed
and
pentatonic
daring swift-footed heroes to dance and sing
eat peaches or figs
whatever they like.
He’s not like most boys. I know this.
And he knows this too. And because he’s not,
monsters lurk in his idyll.
Charybdis and Scylla cast shadow and stone in his bright jell-o water,
stretch tentacle to tendon, would cleave him in two:
half oil-slicked wreckage half solar eclipse
Claim he’s the monster here –
not dazzling and daring,
but different and dangerous,
contagious, blasphemous,
wrong.
A sinister sign of the times.
I pray he sees the truth – how sinister and wrong they are;
masquerading their message of love
that’s not love.
Love is celebrating your bold, burnished child
(any child, every child)
and love is providing the armor
(why must it always be armor?)
to help your child live out his love
(any love, every love).
Not the love you would prefer he live –
a love dipped in non-Styx Teflon,
safe and colorless, sealing him in tradition because:
it’s easier (not because you believe it’s the right way);
it’s smooth (not because it’s straight);
you love him (not because love is love is love is love).
But love IS love is oh-so glorious and personal and… love.
So, you do love him
and affirm him. Tell him he is alright.
That who he is, is not wrong.
Or I do. Not you…
You wrong and hurt him.
Tell him he is too colorful. With too much sashay.
A boy’s light should glint with steel, not sparkle with glitter,
be myrmidon dark, not technicolor twinkle.
Should be sharp, uncompromising, heroic, brave.
To be otherwise is unwise.
Like some problem to solve correctly.
A choice on some standardized test.
Answer A or B.
There is no C. You were born how you were born. You have no choice.
At least on that we can agree—
I mean, would anyone choose something as hard as this?
in a world that hates heroes so flush and plush with sparkle?
then again, if we could — why would anyone not choose sweetness and light?
not want to live somewhere beyond bedeviled and bewildered?
beyond haunted or hardened?
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