How stubborn am I
switching off the guy
who dares disagree
or who once offended me
like the pious phony pols
their oily speeches and hollow calls.
See what I mean?
I can’t resist a keen
cutting critique of my doctrinal foes
in my poetry and my prose.
Why can’t I give up judging
and like you, be stubbornly loving?

This place is an oasis
in the midst of loneliness.
How could I be so lonely
while wrapped in your embrace?

Again I come back to you
head bowed in shame and guilt
like Israel of old who abandoned their love,
the love they could not hold
against the lure of glittery gold
and empty promises of pride
and ego we can barely hide.

I stand before the narrow window
and see more clearly more deeply
in this smaller space
than my years with the picture window
and its crowd calling for attention.

I watch Paul putting his ladder in his truck
atop the plywood to begin his day
on the road to a job.

From my perch slightly uphill
seeing him and his wife,
partners in the seasons
walking in their yard barefoot
looking at plants, watering them,
speaking softly to one another
puts a kind of fragrance in the afternoon.

This tandem talking and walking
a sweet intimacy that assures me
in spite of turmoil and conflict on the planet
here in this small patch of earth
things are as they should be.

Silence silence nothing
at this moment of now
this nothing is not nothing,
but a delicate challenge
to a mind used to saturation in noise
goals busyness
purpose.

What do I fear here in this now
what phantom do I imagine
lurking in the darkness
basking in this brightness?