I want to greet the new year
with 20/20 eyes,
knowing that cure dances
on the edge of hope’s grave
and that in this biblical year
of flood, cancer and death
that grief is just a
short term companion.

Tomorrow time
will step me away,
leaving only memory
and the long walk
to the horizon.

Miriam wept.
as she gave birth
to her first born son
in the great room
of her parents windowless house
because there was no space
for her in their guest room.

Miriam wept
amidst the smell of
animals lulling in the stables,
the stench of blood and life,
pouring from her womb
in circles of pain, joy
and the fear of death.

Miriam wept
as she swaddled him
in the bands of linen
the midwife gifted her,
now their only rich thing,
and wept again
in the soothing waters of the Mikvah

Miriam wept
remembering the small voice
that had once whispered
inside her with a thousand hallelujahs
and the acclaim of a heaven of angels
proclaiming him the redeemer.

Miriam wept
unaware of the indifferent
shepherds tending their
flock in the sweltering night,
watching the convergence
of Jupiter and Venus
blessing the heavens
all the way to Persia.

And knowing that Miriam
treasured up all these things
and pondered them in her heart-
Jesus wept-
openly on the cross
in full view of her.

This poem is a more realistic and historically accurate version of what the nativity story was really like. As such it diverges substantially from the accounts of Luke and Mark found in the New Testament.

For some God comes in silence
and for others it’s a saxophone solo.

He’s the confession a lonely parish priest
has waited all day to see and hear

after lattice hours of watching
smoke blow down
like Cain’s rejected offering.

Every soul has two Popes,
both living in God
but are not of it.

One preserves the past,
the other walks hope’s path.

The force is another Jedi mind trick
that convinces the soul that all
that is Sith is not necessarily sin
but the whining of a baby Yoda
aware of his Death Star.

We carry our fathers on our backs,
honey boys to their joys and violence,
absorbing their frustrations in memory
or dispersing their cries into indifferent winds.

Our hearts listen for the end of the cycle
powerless to the mind beating the rhythm anew
and the soul’s prayers for forgiveness
bounded in an eternal history of all tears.

Even Jesus felt betrayed by the father
and knew that peace only comes
with the last soft shuffle of dirt
and the new born son’s first scream.

Mr. Rogers grace exists
in miniature cities of kindness,

the tranquil tones of forgiveness,
level to the eye of a single frighten child.

For him, and in that moment,
that child is the  most precious
thing in the world.

He blesses them with positive ways
of dealing with their feelings;

the benediction of accepting them
for exactly who they are;

even when everything doesn’t
go exactly the way they hoped,

shows them how to smooth the
dissonance into a beautiful inner music;

store up the blessings
of an ordinary day;

love the ratty, special toy,
even as it grows old;

to know with absolute firmness,
as parents, that anything

mentionable is manageable
and to be human-

and that’s ok.

Let the black dogs run wild,
sharpen the knives for
some real back stabbing,
roundup the usual suspects,
the mystery is about to begin.

The cardigan teen with
his nose buried in his iPhone-
he’s a suspect- murderous thoughts
sprouting his blood-brain barrier.

The neglected son tethered
to a high ranking, paying
position in the family business
with nothing burdens-
he’s a suspect too.

Eight others are robbing
Peter to pay Paul
to pay Mary to pay Martha
to pay the extorting genomes,
on the verge of being exposed,
all dangling near disinheritance.

The old codger with the money
whose always leaving clean knives out,
knowing they will forever thirst
for meat and blood, the ******
that will do the work for him,
the job his lawyers failed to do

until the whole ***** gang
finds him splayed on the calico rug,
a Chuka Bocho clever in his stomach,
a Wusthof stuck in a vertebrae-
well, he was a prime suspect,
but now, obviously he is not.

Patricide is not always a family crime.
Point the finger at the mother,
daughter, sister, son, brother
but also the heart, soul, brain
of all others inflicted with hate
that makes everyone suspects too.