God,
           do not send the sunshine
           down in thoughtless
           torrents.
Please
            do not obsess on light
            falling on all of your making,
            graciously falling
            everything on earth.
For  we
            are things of the shade,
            and the light falls too
            ******* eyes
Blind
            to all your light.

Bless the blessings.
Bless the moon
for bestowing dreams
that illuminate the soul.
Bless its beams.
Bless the way it reveals
revelations in the dark,
black letters inked on white vellum
daring to be read
that release the heaviness of the mind
in the lightness of eternity.
Bless the idea
that frees, not oppresses.
Bless words that shed
their flesh for the revolution.  
Bless the protest sign
that replaces the trigger.
Bless the chalk mark that teaches
and not outlines a body.
Bless the creative mind
that marches with determined feet.
Bless the gravestones never needed,
those living bodies never
requiring  homicide reports.
Bless all the never used bullets,
the limbs that remain whole.
Bless all those who die
in their right time,
their memories properly recorded.  
Bless their smiles.
Bless your laugh.
Bless the eye
that sees, believes,
that still has vision and faith.
Bless all the prophets
who were right.
Bless the heart
filled with good emotions.
Bless the choir of our tongues,
the hymn that uplifts.
Bless all the times
that God has granted us
the chance to do the right thing.

The hot night rain drenches me in sleep
opening a bow to prayer
amidst the lunatic birds swarming
in the dark heat.
Magnolias are split in dreams
heavy with bolts and tears,
flowing in the cascade
of cracked mirrors.
All is unmoored from my memory,
surviving on communion.
Dear Jesus am I not more profound
than thy mad swirl?

From form  
vile evil
in the shade of hades
sire and rise
the lived devil,
the tornado donator
that is the heart of the earth.
God denying, dog hating,
it listens for silence, the license
to edit the tide to its whim
and sink man’s canoe in its ocean.

Wise are the parents who give
their children difficult names.

Names that are a chant to God,
a sacrament with every utterance.

Or names that light a fiery rebellion
in the mulling brain.

Names that speak of the glory
that was before the slave ships.  

Names that display the wonder of sky,
the Eagle, Buffalo, Wolf, Deer.

Names that should hurt and choke
when mispronounced.

Braves names spoken
by brave and unafraid people.

Names shouted loud by those
who fearlessly, openly love.

Those who dropped their names
in the easy English soil, reclaim them!

Speak it in the accent of the old country,
the tribes of the African plain and rivers,

the screech, rumble of the clouds, creatures
that gave you your forever sound.

Gather your jewels from the ashes.
Mine them until they get their attention.

Collect the pieces of your lost continents
from their miscomprehension.

Your difficult names predate centuries
of their arrogance, ignorance, prejudice.

You are history
not their rewrite.  

Don’t explain your name’s meaning
to those who have forgotten your story.

You are the original and
they are the stereotype.

Bend your syllables, vowels
into a new understanding country.

Keep your difficult names
proudly unassimilated.

Keep it
your home.

Today I will be
an apple bringer,
a sower of Job’s tears,
a healer of grief.

Today I will be
the tarty sweet fruit
passed hand to hand
in the peace caravan.

Today I will be
the cooing melody
among a flight of doves.

Today I will be
the candle of the night
that shines the best
of my country.

Today I will be
the wind that spreads
the camphoric cries
that can not be blown out.

Tomorrow the world
will grant justice
for the obstinate tears shed.

Tomorrow God will
dance and sit amongst us
in the wake of his beautiful moon.

Tomorrow the residue of his love
will turn the screams into almonds
that we will eat with him.

Tomorrow we will witness
the miracle of all fallen songs
blossoming into tulips.

The tears fade in
the screaming inside howling brick.
It is our cancer
swirling around,
stone, flesh and home.
Our history is in its eye,
our profile in this wild night of carnage
slouching towards mornings. We turn
away and the brick frees us.
We turn back and are inside
our granite selves forming in the sculpting wind,
erring in the perfect sad light,
different, broken-whole.
Our names are erased from brick,
letters spreading like smoke
in the all defining wind.
It drops in the field of its birth,
a flash in the silent mud and clay.
It shimmers on my wife’s white blouse,
and when she walks away,
settles in memory.
The wind chisels a robin
falling, dying in my stare.
The cloud of my neighbor
floats towards me, pale eyes
trying to define me
but I am not a window.
Her face is lost in the brick
and the wind erases her,
the street, their signs,
the names of those in houses behind.