And now I bow In the nave I built with my Own hands A force of will Maybe, and of Hope, and strength And love, and Power, and good Ness and weak Ness and sacrifice And longing and Grief and beginning I kneel before this Altar to my dreams Before I burn It down, before The doing and Undoing pulse Through my being And there it is Again, my knowing In the unknowing That this temple This altar this Divine expression Must ignite, must Burn, must be made Into ash, and thereby Made into everything That comes after– The garden, the Synagogue, the holiest Holy, of all the sacred Spaces, filled with the Breath, the Fire of the Divine Universe intoned In your throat, in your Heart, in your center Melted to make Way for something New
Wintery walk. Image, my own.
Gift
Sometimes the memories And myths that were woven Into your childhood become Magic again to your arcing Soul. The songs that break Forth in trumpets. The Prayers that end in good Tidings. The trees all Dressed in snow and stars Light against long December Nights which beg gathering And joy-filled repasts
Aspen and snow. Image, my own.
Roads Taken
Two roads diverged in a snowy wood And knowingly, quiet and somber I stood, looking out on the starry, moonlit way then took the path that had already been trod
With careful foot-fall through the hoary frost, after the ribbon of travelers who’d crossed the fork in the road, the decision place And rather than test the dark and the cold
I took the chance to walk along where others had gone, and bend my care instead to perceiving the moment, the present The here, the now, the trees and the fences
I shall be telling this in an age from maiden, to matron, to crone, to sage, I took the road that many had paved And made it my journey, anyway
Fern Frost. Photograph: Skip Via, West Valley Naturalists.
Braid
dark and light strands of fermion behavior spin good evil if they exist tethered whole to the same fate maybe driving Dirac’s trick as truth every particle we are made of even distantly is woven, connected to the cosmological horizon, all tangled up, simultaneously unspun strand by strand into infinity
In my line of work, I get to see things And hear things That many people do not, Will not, see and hear Personal narrative: a genre Used to tell one’s story To put your truth into The World, tell your Life to the Universe Of all living things To say, to see, To be seen To listen These are very tender Moments—actions, braveries Moves—today a young man Quietly said to his classmates Boys want to be Beautiful Too, boys want to be Given flowers and trust And the opportunity, To be Vulnerable Boys want to Be seen and soft And before you scoff Please know that to put Eyes on this young man He was “normal” Which doesn’t exit But he wasn’t some standout He wasn’t crying to be Noticed in a needy, cloying Way he was sincere Brown eyes shining And serious, he said again, Boys want to break down Boys want to be treasured And saved, and tendered Boys are complex and Layered, multi-faceted And so easily shattered So easily loved Beautiful boy
Lacrosse. Image, my own.
Melt: for the hottest October on record
things melt like banana popsicles on hot sidewalks
hearts at the cuddle of a tender puppy’s nuzzle
sun as it sherberts into sunset, dreamy scoops of carnelian, fuchsia, crimson
water being sublimated into sediment, becoming sludgy mud
metal silver when heated to one thou- sand seven hundred and sixty-three degrees
falsity as you live in truth in the world as it is, not as you wish it to be
light refracted and gloriously dispersed through water into the entire color spectrum
butter bubbling, sizzling in the fry pan in anticipation of the next repast
bodies into one another, warm with the savior-vivre of desire
Aspen in October. Image, my own.
Sitting in Cars with Moms
Listening to music with abandon, shake it Hearing a favorite podcast in a vacuum, rapt Slumping over the steering wheel, emergency Crying, tears pouring down cheeks, salty Praying as if there is no tomorrow, apocalypse Laughing raucously with a friend on the line Changing the ka-billgionth diaper on the seat Resting the eyes at the thought of dinner, cook Wanting for a touch a hug a support, embrace Kicking back the seat for a true nap, snooze Reading a book while a child is at music lessons Waiting for babies in the carpool line, patient Scanning a prescription before returning to sickness Sipping a drink in silence while ruminating, Pondering the existential crises of humankind Yodeling to an Oktoberfest hit, hot 100 Brushing back the hair, mustering a smile, love
Rabbit Brush. Image, my own.
Hope Feathered in Me Today
Rose like an owl in the dark of night. Off on an important measure. A simple key into what is Take no more than you give.
On this day we celebrate The now— the moment— what is As it is what we have to celebrate Looking into the moon-face of our children
Listening to their dreams. Holding a lover after a frozen lamp-lit tramp Into the pitch-dark night Drawing lines across a page,
A stone, a landscape to remember Each leaf outlined, sepia veins, Each intricate brace of existence a Falling into one another– hope
The first rays of an orbital sunrise break through the Earth’s horizon. NASA iss066e099389 (Dec. 30, 2021)
Friends,
It’s certainly a gift that I feel I can use this moniker to describe each and every one of you. If you don’t feel like I’m your friend, will you please reserve that judgement for hallway talk? Or see me after class so that I can assure you of my care.
Here’s the thing, when you stepped through the doors of this classroom, somewhere around August 17th, 2023, I was already determined and committed to create a space where we can and could all safely explore concepts that require a fair amount of nuance and maturity.
But here is the other secret I happen to already have known: you have the prerequisites to be successful in this kind of open, thoughtful, argument-based inquiry and exploration. You see, everything, at its core, is an argument. Some arguments are petty—not worth engaging in. Some arguments are about cleaning toilets—your choice. But most arguments simply surround the differences of perspective, experience, and ways in which we’d like to control the world around us.
Now beyond argument, there is a field, and I’d like to call this field TRUTH. Many of the arguments we engage in as humans can be extrapolated into our desire to discover, uncover, find, know, and live in Truth. (Something I think is innate to our species.) And truth has taken a real beating in our society and culture as of late. As the information age and technological age have chaotically clashed and melded together, not unlike the birth of a new star, we have a constant stream of data that is both driven our way and so effortlessly accessible at the click of one key stroke or touch digit that we forget how far humanity has come on this examination of truth before you were even a gleam in your parent’s eyes. (You can google that idiom after class if you don’t know what I’m talking about.)
But if there is one thing I am certain of, it is that Truth with a capital T still exists. There is truth to be had and found in the world, and I hope that your research, your writing, your thinking and pondering on the subjects you have chosen this year (including your “self” in your personal narratives) have caused you to invest in this examination of the world with the intent to find truth. Don’t let the algorithm and the horrific car-crash videos you watch take that quest away from you. Don’t let AI rob you of the opportunity to figuratively bend the squishy matter we recognize as brain in coruscating synapses and ever-more lovely electrical exchanges of action-potential through your very own neurotransmitters. Use your sublime brain for your and humanity’s betterment. Promise me.
Things I have learned that don’t matter: being swoll or the hottest person in the room, being cool like above all comment because your persona gives off such a vibe or drip-and-smack that you are inaccessible (most of the time I’ve found that those who are “cool” often remain inaccessible to themselves); being “right”, this one is huge, and there is absolutely no honor in it. There isn’t one correct way to do things, and once you free yourself of this constraint you’ll live much more happily. And living too much in either retrospection—the nostalgia and glow of the past; or prospection—the lust and thirst for a future that hasn’t happened yet.
Live, my beautiful friends, with your eyes wide open in wonder. Live with your arms thrown apart ready to receive both the pain and the joy that life will bring you. Live so that you are constantly, even doggedly, learning more and evolving as a human every. single. day. Live the questions. (That’s Rilke. You can look it up, too.)
Now it’s all well and fine for me to offer you this “advice” but please don’t think I can even live the half of it myself. However, I’ve also learned that the more you practice these modes of living right here, right now, being present, sitting in the packet of time you’re fixed to and watching the experience unfold as you settle in– allowing you to determine how you can love more, reciprocate better, and evolve with grace, and seek that capital T truth– the better off you’ll be. In fact, the some of the best advice I’ve ever received comes from Lori McKenna’s song “Humble and Kind” from her album The Bird and the Riffle. (Also covered by Tim McGraw who is a little more famous.) She reminds, “When you get where you’re going, turn right back around. And help the next one in line. Always be humble and kind.” And then, just like that (snap), it’s gone. And you are moving on to the next moment, episode, or lesson that life offers.
Nothing can make a human feel more small and insignificant that taking just a moment to ponder on the infinite. Or the eventual dissolution of the infinite into entropy (still infinite, I believe). As the physicist and writer Alan Lightman, in his book, The Transcendent Brain, describes, “I believe that the spiritual experiences we have can arise from atoms and molecules. At the same time, some of these experiences, and certainly their very personal and subjective nature, cannot be fully understood in terms of atoms and molecules. I believe in the laws of chemistry and biology and physics — in fact, as a scientist I much admire those laws — but I don’t think they capture, or can capture, the first-person experience of making eye contact with wild animals and similar transcendent moments. Some human experiences are simply not reducible to zeros and ones.” There simply isn’t an algorithm that can capture the human experience.
One day this will all be gone, we will all be gone. Just like Macklemore says in his song (“Excavate”, Gemini). And there will be some kid in the hallways of Wasatch High School, like L. Daines who is looking for herself or himself in the sound of her/his music (also Macklemore), “Because music is a mirror…” Let’s not make our eventual death the reason we live. Instead, let’s live between these two great mysteries within whatever searing, glittering moments we’re presented with. And then turn and give our help, our hands, our brains, and our hearts to those other humans around us who make OUR world go round. That’s it. I think.
Once upon a time, I sat at the California Academy of Sciences in their astronomy hall underneath a false sky filled with tiny pin-prick light bulbs made to resemble stars, and listened to the smooth baritone of Tom Hanks narrate something like the advent of the Universe as though it was a nighttime story. Goodnight Moon, but better. When the camera moved from focus on our Milky Way Galaxy to an increasingly anamorphic lens, I, and the rest of the audience, could see that galaxy after galaxy after galaxy after galaxy… it really did appear to go on forever, infinitely.
Just like those galaxies, star upon infinite star, there are so many things that go into making up one single human person. The innumerable number of atoms, the constantly functioning systems. Just breathing, for heaven sakes, takes… do we know how many systems are engaged in one human breath? None of this has to matter to you. But I do hope that you’ll continue to put your best brain forward in every moment, every breath you are part of.
Today is one ending. You’re leaving, you’re out of here. But tomorrow, a new day will dawn. You’ll have the chance to gaze upon another sunrise. And if you’re not into that, to watch the death of another day as dusk moves us into night. Beautiful, either way. A new moment will rise, and you’ll be given opportunity after opportunity to make the most of your life. I hope you’ll take and treasure each one.
And when you realize that you’re rushing on, your attention is whacky and divided, or you’ve gotten trapped outside yourself and the road is dark and the path is winding, and you don’t know the way home, I hope you’ll consider thinking about the way/ways you can share your gifts with others to reorient your true heart. So I’m going to leave you with this poem. A gift from my true heart to yours. Don’t forget that for each end, there certainly is a new now. A gift of beginning.
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.
Refined + Rugged 