There are just some people
Who are just so filled
With love and light
Its almost like
They glow all over
Angels in disguise
Helping others
To see the light
And to find their ways
Shielding people
With their wings of love
Giving grace
Peace
Mercy
Kindness
And good will
Wherever they go
We have all met
These angels in our lives
Coming and extending themselves
When we really need it
Giving us that life raft
To keep us afloat
When we really need it the most

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.


- Billy Collins

Being**

Be brave, quietly so.
Be true, like the North Star.
Be kind, as spring rain awakens the flowers.
Be thoughtful, to let the world out and let yourself in.
Be yourself—no matter the impediments.

Be…breath the now.
Just be.

Cool, gentle air
glides across my face.
Strains of hydrangeas
mingle with THC
and sweet, cheap, fermented
grain alcohol.

The stillness
knocks the breath from
My lungs.
Wafts of voices drift
across the swaying trees
mingling
with the steady chirp of
crickets and a lone car puttering
in the distance.

A gentle whistle
Like the start of piano concerto
No. 15
crescendes
to the roar
Of a thousand bullfrogs
Straining to hit a high note.

Trees bow
To the iron god,
Voices melt into the grating
Metal monster
Declaring their
Subservience.

The air rushes and then
Disappears
Just as suddenly
And the voices return
and the crickets hum their
chorus
and the stillness
whispers
crescendos
screams.