In the store it catches his eye.
The boy asks, “What’s that?”
I answer: “Pocket pie.”
“A what?”
“A pie that fits in your pocket. Want one?”
Of course.
Back home, parked, we stay in the front seat
of the truck. The boy turns the radio on.
Age two and a half, he chooses rock.
I drink a beer. He bites crust, apple goo.
Saturday afternoon, April,
sweet as pie.

I know you have loved to where it hurt like the guitar strings
pulled twisted plucked cried out to an audience at the Fillmore
or had that backbeat inside the bass the drums
saying **** me
cried out like the lead singer
have you ever loved more
inside your heart torn outside becoming in
as the melody sang about
some love in two tones
you took it to heart
deep
understood again
how magically the words were
somehow
written
just for you

Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I wake in every nerve.
I watch a beacon swing
From dark to blazing bright;
We thunder through ravines
And gullies washed with light.
Beyond the mountain pass
Mist deepens on the pane;
We rush into a rain
That rattles double glass.
Wheels shake the roadbed stone,
The pistons **** and shove,
I stay up half the night
To see the land I love.

this day
we come together
we congregate
we stand together
from different nations
we gather, in this place
to mourn, to weep
to say, to pray for no more
no more the innocent.....
we this congregation
made from different
colours, different races
different religions and creeds
stand in quiet hope and grace
trying together to put in place
an understanding, that leaves
no man, woman  or child
thinking that the death
of another person,
is a valid way to make
a political or religious statement

we stand together and weep
and pray for all those who have
become or have been made pawns
to this style of rhetoric...

At first light
it comes unbidden

Mourning--
clenching deep
enough to sound your soul
Stone on a string
sent to tell the depth of drowning--
in the tears
without a cry
weary beyond the sigh
No act of will
This weight--
gives no resistance
to the gravity of ocean's metal-gray
They seep along a sloping cheek
in silence

“Only lovers ever go this deep
It's strange,” they say