Audacity

Crescent Moon, Sunset, Waikoloa, Hawaii. December 2022. Image, my own.

Be Old

Not in the wizened sense
(but be that, too, if you are
vigor and strong chords)
you don’t have to be a sapling

or a sprawling hundred-year growth
the world, and you
are fascinated with all things
new, be old

and let some of the love that life has
offered you
seep through,
a sticky sap of belonging,

bright, amber scent of pine
to teach you
that in your bones
you can give your self moments

to sit in stillness
in silence
in the calm of the wind
out of the storm

be old
and look at lessons
that life has revealed
think about the continuum

of the world
with lenses, and circles
you’ve crafted of heart–
sinew and marrow

joy and sorrow
ache and pulsing
love, all experience.
don’t forget that molten

rock sometimes surfaces
from the core of the earth
because you need be both–
foundation and fire
be old and be new

Church Doors, doors from a church that were moved to a bookstore in Haarlem, Netherlands, January 2023. Image, my own

Bus

Today I saw your bus
Pull safely to stop at the
light on highway 40
and the tears just

spontaneously came
I was so happy you
were safe, you were
Home

Timpanogos and waning gibbous moon, yesterday, my commute. August 2024. Image, my own.

Attraction

It turns out
that attraction is real

I know this from a plethora,
a multiplicity
of experiences

but the most vivid is my high school physics teacher who explained that if you were to put two objects into space, in a vacuum, a gravitational attraction would eventually, inevitably be established, formed between the two objects

these two objects would attract one another
who knew?

Beach Huis, Noordwijk, Netherlands. January 2023. Image, my own.

The End From the Beginning

Endings,
they definitely aren’t my favorite.
A bird in the hand… they claim.
I’m better if some things never change.
A feather in a vacuum only acted on by gravity
Falls as fast as anything.
This fundamental of physics makes my head spin.
Like that janitor who left all of his fortune to the library where he shined the broken tiles day-in and day-out.
Here. Now.

Maybe this gift is just the beginning.

Orion, from my window. December 2023. Image, my own.

The Color Atlas of Galaxies

why do you purchase the color atlas of galaxies, cambridge press, for your child? with any other intent than to enable you and them to feel impossibly small. micro. insignificant. to be reminded of your own obsolescence. is it working? yes. you possess the color atlas of galaxies, cambridge press, so that you understand that if you are tiny, miniature, inconsequential as far as all existence is concerned you will begin to feel that your place in the universe is not unknown, it is confirmed. because, it turns out that in the english language, you should never put a comma after because, because this rule has been established by grammarians for a long, long time. before you were born. but it also turns out, that you don’t really need to worry about that, in the grand scheme of things because, you hope your students will never read your work, or call you out on your hypocrisy of punctuation. the best thing is that you’ve chosen this side-gig as a poet so you can really say f-it and look into a color atlas of galaxies, cambridge press.