He swooped down landed atop the jutting eave
surveyed our yard for mice and other prey
and I prayed he wouldn’t leave.
He did not fly away
but up to the elm
keenly searching his realm.

His magnificence took my breath
I a privileged audience
no less than watching Macbeth
or listening to Ravel.

His breast a mottled gray and white
vigilant eyes and lethal raptor beak
his wings perfectly formed for agile flight.

I wondered if our species was perfectly made
and if so for what kind of flying:
gliding into an emerald glade
or lying there to get lost in cloudy skies
or like the hawk look and leap and rise?

I get so tired of one religion
tearing down another.
It seems so cheap to me -
a protestation better muted
in favor of a simple act of helpfulness.

I am Rip
awakened from a long sleep
finally my eyes opening
to see a new world.

I am planting myself
between eternal hope
and eventual discord

Just some grey occurrence
reflecting the rue of life

The middle way between
the light of day
and the shimmering night.

What a query we have in the night
Its illuminated stare
leaves us more uncertain
The silence of a million stars pervades

It comes to me
on a path yearly worn
yet a path fresh with each step
each breath
each electron sparking through my brain
in its electric searching.

I am alive
yet so small
almost nothing
I am a leaf on a great oak
whose roots reach into the cosmos.

“…how close we are
     to being
     nothing
     most of the time

     and
     for some of us
     nothing all of the time…  - Bukowski: “Meeting Them”


Reading his poem freed me
but bound me to a budding desire
to write
and explore
its roots in a reality
I fear.

How close to being nothing
are we
and is it for eternity
or just a moment?

But just asking the question is liberating
as if I looked death in the face
and just smiled.