I like the quiet way that life yields itself to its own tongue or torso tripping on its own soles when it hits a sidewalk
how clumsy can be poetic and you can laugh even after you fall as long as you are in good company

you walk
no matter the direction
this dream
      never changes much
they put their foreheads
to yours And smile

in some they are wolves
that sleep at your side

in others travelers
that gather
with you in the forest

in others they
   point toward a tiger
lurking in your chest

you walk
        and they protect
nothing is wild

        (not even a dream)

why are you doing this
       the longest day of summer of has come
and you inch towards the darkness

arresting migrants off the street
       law you call it, crime you name it
to flee for refuge somewhere else

why are you doing this
       there is a refugee, a cave lion, a tiger,
a jaguar who traveled far & wide

they are not weak; they are not alone
       you cover your face and take them
but one day when the light is the shortest cat

out in the alley watching
          this unlit terror fade the tribunals
will begin and they will knock

at your door looking for Schutzstaffel
          & the camp garrison
and ask you why were you doing that?

I should have told you that there were no coves to run to on this beach’s coast; when I think of you, there is only sadness. The waves crash and the rocks are all ragged, what you hide is yours forever, your responsibility—it isn’t my boat or oar to tend to and maintain

warheads and bombers
      are tied clatterings
of just-married cans tying us to war
again

Diplomacy should have married
the bride, but here we are
to war again

Someone steal the bride
someone make the picket signs

For I, too, refuse
to go to war

This little ribbon of lost meets


the slender and wide ribbon of remembrance.  


all children are ours.        


  All people are worthy of respect


when you can open your eyes again,



       even to stare into someone else’s pained eyes or even your own


                            you can tell


that there is room for compassion,


        there is certainly room

for grace

little well of a heart how full it gets when it rains
and your are not prepared to drink  

i saw the news today and I wept again; it had to spill somehow
all these horrid ribbons of pain well over in a stranger eyes

human dignity is buoyant and the sacred heart of christ is still
in the west bank