Why is the heart the icon of love?
Why not the finger or the thigh?
Would it be just as compelling to say
He loved her with all his mind?
The mind is surely involved in loving -
deciding to do the dishes rather than watch football
or to be romantic when she touches your cheek
while in the midst of writing the last page of your novel.

Why didn’t I ever make love to Mabs
in my twenties rather than discuss politics?
Oh! She was so cute
and smelled like heaven
but our kisses were dry.

I gave my heart to Helen tonight
and she gave me hers
we laughed and teared up
as we shared romantic memories.

And why can’t I feel the heart of Jesus in me?
Is it some spiritual vapid void?
I love and know him but having his heart
escapes my grasp.
I hope before I pass
I will feel him pulsing in my veins.

Maybe another poem
or five or more will help,
for I know my  muse knows
the springs and streams I seek.
And here on these pages
may be an answer…

This morning before my body woke up
my mind was unleashed in a dream.
I was back in a classroom
at an college campus somewhere
in an inconceivable city.

Not totally unlike my actual classrooms
of decades past when the culture was in ferment
and freedom reigned
rained a storm of acceptance
beyond tolerance where everyone
had a chance to become great.

This dream was a pulsing field hospital
where healing permeated everyone present
where our combined body heats generated a sweet aroma
of intellectual and spiritual sweat
that transported each of us beyond
the confines  of our individual biographies
and stories of human suffering

We heard poems and songs composed
by students eager to learn from the oversouls
of everyone present there
students of every background imaginable
we were a single body
a collection of lungs breathing as one.

Thank you Great Dream Weaver
only you could extend my soul to the Universe
in one glorious magnificent moment
greater than time itself.

This old teacher was young again
in a mutually creative minute of sleep
regenerative  and artful
beyond the confines of flesh and blood.

Gratitude is such a weak word
for what I feel
now for this marvelous scene
more than any puny fact or actuality.

“To write is to go looking for what I don’t even know myself before I write it.”
- Annie Ernaux, winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature

I went into the dark canyon
not knowing where it would lead -
another adventure
taken up to pursue a dream,
my hand holding the reins
not knowing what lie ahead
nor what I was looking for.

The notion that led me here
words in my head
the meaning of which were a cypher so cryptic
I knew not what quest I would wrest from them.

But I had been told that this riding
was an exploration of the unknown.
That I was just a hapless pioneer
in a borderless land,
a wilderness
requiring a spindly surrender.

When I think of the stars and galaxies
capable of capturing your notice and care
the splendid finitude of your love for me
pierces my heart.

With a bleak wan smile
she confided
when she went to the restroom
she noticed she had not flushed the toilet the previous time
and I could hear a hint of fear and regret in her voice.

For two weeks the pain on the left side of her back
was still there
and an awkward limp
when she got out of bed.
She spoke with a dripping sadness in her words.

In a slightly bewildered tone
she traced her arrival at home
from her visit with her aging nieces.
She reflected on their continual drone about their medical conditions
as she listened mute
without her usual
lively witty
response.

It was as if she could almost feel
the slow creeping shadow
of senescence
and mortality
behind her.

I was again struck
and gratified
by the surprising
frankness of my eighty-six-year-old cousin
as we chatted and each recalled
our Thanksgiving
encounters
with kin.

But does a lover ignore his beloved?
Do I think you get used to it?
Like a flute playing in the distance.
Do I think you blind or deaf
to my silence
to the bustling dreary me?
Do I think you are immune
to my flight?
Do I hope you are dough waiting to be kneaded
assume you are accustomed to being unneeded
or do I wear
a dark cloak glad you don’t see me there?

How often do I blithely
utter, I love you
while wrapped secure
in the loaf of self?

Like a film filling space one frame at a time
it falls together seemingly by accident
but before I know it there it is –
a story, a revelation
a dawning
an aha! moment.
And I don’t even think about
the minds that came upon the ideas
images, humor or drama
together.

I should think about that the next time
a series of seemingly unconnected events
fall upon
or into me
with a surprise ending.

There are leads on my chest
to detect any vagaries within
but you are the best heart monitor
circulating in the deep vessels and chambers
checking what pulses and moves in me.
I trust you there
in the darkest parts of me
where life wanders.

Gentle arrhythmic plinks
down from the plumbing vent
through the stove hood
then plink-a-plank-a-clank        clank    clank  
clank   clank  clank clankclankclank
the roof rumbling now
soft flashes beyond the blinds
the deep throated distant thunder
tumbling over clouds and air
into our living room
where
I am grateful
for a dry pad and pen.

A meal of turkey and fixings
an afternoon of repairing her fence
making a shelf unit for their dining room
all these grand efforts
would feel good
and might get me noticed
but what about a smile to a stranger
a call to my cousin
putting away my old neighbor’s garbage can
smoothing my wife’s hair as I pass behind her easy chair
waving at the new guy on the block who doesn’t know me
bringing a cold drink to the yardman?

Going small
is better than nothing at all
when I’ve talked myself out of the big deed
due to time, tired, bruise or bleed.

I dive nose first into your inner essence
there in your yellow *******
your mighty flowering all the way from your roots
in the succulent whiteness of your blossoming being
you reveal to the world what it means
to disclose, expose and surrender
your deep secrets
to all who stop to take notice,
to him who planted and nurtured you
to your magnificent wholeness
to the creator of the universe
in which you flourish.

Your scent is a hint
of the mystery which is you
my sweet magnolia blossom.

Her dark hair, red lipstick
slightly weathered but alluring face,
the swift efficient way she poured our coffee
a slight sheen of sweat on her cheeks
evidence of her ownership
and hard work at her cafe.

My friend and I having fished from the shores of the nearby lake
from first light
now basked in Pat’s femininity
strength, confidence, and congeniality
as she took our order.
We smiled knowingly at each other as she left our table
our mouths watering as we thought about
her and her pancakes-and eggs-breakfast.

Leaping from below the sands and receding surf
his head held high and proud
breathing salty breeze.
Sea creature or thoroughbred
what would he do
upon clearing the sandy womb?

I stood there in wonder
poring my darkness into his
hoping his silhouette legs
would emerge before the sun fell.
I yearned to feel him splash his majestic self
up to me.

I’d ride him away from the darkness
looking for light
encounter creatures of the night
on the edge of the sea.
My horse and me on this gusty spree
are one in this seascape
running free.

I’m drowning in this night.
Please give me a jot of joy
turn on the light
to spurn this blight
I’ve gone overboard
send me a buoy.

Mourning
By Glenn Currier

I saw the woman kneeling at his grave
weeping at his premature departure.
Were her tears a liquid bridge
between their love, their passionate past
and a new still aborning present?

My heart ached for her
thinking of the way they gave themselves to each other
and to a greater cause
wondering
and hoping
his life was a small stone
for building something
beautiful.

I have heard the word as a condemnation
by a religious hierarchy
which meant a severing of ties with a wayward sinner,
ostracism the worse thing for
one interested in staying -
this loneliness and pain desired by the keepers of the norm.

But I think of those with whom my communication is ex.
Al, my former close friend who turned his norms onto me
Jackie, a good and loving woman now gone
James, a man who no longer wants to have lunch with me.
There are a few more
who’ve wittingly or not
closed the door
but in every case a kind of sad weight
abides near my heart, a pain that literally aches
with tears just behind  my eyes.

Your voice crackles like red logs in a camp
singes the tiny hairs in my ears
burns in my numbered parts
eddies over the big stones
rolls pebbles left and right as if looking for a place
to lodge and rest, away from the pounding environment.

Your long and insistently unruly hair
tickles the tiny places inside
that never thought of being tickled
never figured to be touched by your hidden wildness
the disguised untamedness
stirs my groggy languid waters
your wild, full flushed heart pounds
rhythm into my flat languid and resistant plains.

I am a sandy arid desert dotted with cacti and pigweed
thirsting for the fluid you excite with ease
and draw up from my depths.

Songs erupting from the well of your faith
come forth from your sober mouth
and waft over our sallow selves
over our normality and our implacable comfort.

Your vocal chords echo Leonard Cohen
a pursuer who never found the object of his quest
but you do not deify the journey
like so many traveling troubadours.
You rest assured of your place up yonder
the place safe and secure in green planet that is you.

I took the train into the tunnel
the car lit with candle glow
there standing just so
my brother with a wan look and a slight grin
I leaned to kiss his forehead, felt the taut skin
Mom across from him,
I placed my cheek against hers
two tears from the deep cavern of her sadness
fell on my constant brow  
Dad faced me with dazzling cheer
eyes full of joy that his son was here.

Awakening from the abyss of night
I arose with a smile inside
grateful for an intimate ride
with that poignant cast
an interlude to abide
and flutter in the sails of family
arrived from a pulsar of the past.

That day visiting with friends
I hugged every one tight
cherished the lush
precious
present
of the living.

The life of parents is gauged in teaspoons
of sweat, vinegar, blood and tears
in early mornings and tire of late afternoons
all collected in a cup of salvation for years.

Small sufferings and moments of pain
become sacrifice for a child’s little sins
so the youth won’t suffer the blame,
cost of loss, but the joy of life’s wins.

All these payments made without wrath
may never be repaid to them in their time
but lessons taught will etch a path
for a child to grow up into its prime.

Anyone who loves the unkind
or selfish or one who has spurned
virtue or left goodness behind
pays debts the errant don’t earn.

celebrity TV interviews
preening for the screen
they leave me hollow
but what am I expecting?
authenticity?
ha! rare if not impossible
as the camera shouts at the soul.

audacious introspection
from one who thinks he is enlightened
in a special way
blissfully unaware of the grip
of ego.

i say this aware
and repentant
of my pride.

I feel a little joy
to see the new growth on the sage bush
it survived the deep freeze of winter.
I join this subtle green creature
in this moment, in this piece of now
maybe I too will get through this season
with a small burst
of creative energy
enter the gates
and rejoin Life.

Lightly my fingers rest on the letters
hoping to coax  out of them
a lyric or a prayer to end this day.
I love these letters
who open the universe,
who touch the cheek of God
and fall here like shooting stars
or small planets
for you to see.

I miss a stone and step into the shallow stream
like a child hoping for an adventure
from his misstep into the clear water
where he can fall into the sky
and ride a cloud to Odessa
Pikes Peak or north to the Cascades.

I remember when the soles of my feet
were calloused from running across lawns
sidewalks and streets to play
ball or adventure into the nearby field
where we fashioned a fort our of tall sticky ****
and made up rules for initiation into our club.

What a life I find in these letters
who surrender to my touch so easily
what a symphony to match the music of Mahler
coming across the net falling here into my ears
like undeserved grace.

I'm old.
But I am new too
a freshly-arrived-today
unopened package
with a mystery inside.

Each morning you unwrap the day
with your light
and here I am with this present
this mystery before me.
What poem will I find hidden here?
What new creation?
Because it is all new.
I am not my past
but a package full of you
and here I am
ready to unwrap it.

I am neither all sinner or all saint
I am a break in the fence
easing the flow through boundaries.

Some people are writers
some are speakers or preachers.

Some try to do both
but one side of them always presses forward
as if to say,
This is who I really am
This is my natural gift.

when I need to be awakened
and my writing confidence is shaken
when I seem to be too far apart
in urgent need of loving hearts

where there’re too many un-live things
and I need to hear a poet sing
the times I need a different take
or can’t move on from some dark ache

I want to see some twinkling stars
and leave the shades of stinking bars
or caught in dark of hellish nights
and seek a flight to brilliant heights

Early morning when I get up
I am in a fight with the dark forces
that inhabit my bones
and haunt my mind.

And I have a choice:
heaven and life or the devil and death.

He is walking slowly where step by step
measure by measure in the lush meadow
he plays a dulcet meandering air
inviting me to join him there
unbound by dark and foreboding forces
of the viral pervasive present.

I join him and we fly to the open plain
recently refreshed by rain
Oklahoma and its green fields
where the spirits of Native peoples reside
and in soft spring breezes glide
and remember their ancestors’ names
and the simple childhood games
they played kicking up dust of earth
in earshot of their mothers who gave birth
to those precious souls and bodies brown
made of love and Red River and ground.

The flute’s tune again catches me
in its lively streaming strain
and pulls me up to airy heights
to join the dance of darkness and light
in spirit realms where beauty
and reality tango together in peace.

I like wakes.
Seeing her body
revealed her latter-day unsettled life
and her female beauty.
It was a final goodbye to this woman
whom we had not seen in decades.

But the wonder of that gathering
was the friends of a previous season,
the smiles, hugs, and  laughter,
together recalling memories seared -
some by pain and others by joy.
Meeting husbands, wives, and children
of people we had last seen in their youth
in just a moment told the sum
of their maturing.

Praying together,
hearing the minister lead the rituals
with humility and gentleness,
reminding us of her life and love,
brought healing
of hurts long heaped up with the church.

This gathering of souls
mystically bound -
in an instant -
pierced layers of scars
wiped away
with the balm of forgiveness,
waking our spirits.

Maybe that is why it is called
a wake.

May I be infected
with a sureness
of your love

May it spread within me
like an IV flowing confidence
in my okayness

In the face of fear
and desperation may
I be a cove of calm presence

May you be well
whole and robust
in every cell

In this time of solitude
may I encounter
the awesome power of now

You are a valve I can turn
to open the flow of love
into my day
into my heart.

It is predawn and still dark outside
but I cannot sleep.
The cool of aching winter calls
but the oaks, still green,
soon their leaves will fall
like me who so easily slips away
from the grasp
of the universe
that always beckons me to join
the elements of its peace.

But too often
I choose the storms
the collisions
and scattering properties.

How sweet it is to close the distance
between us
to find each other
and dwell together
in moments of love, respect,
mutual admiration,
and laughter
that seem so rare
out there,
to abide in sweet and precious harmony
for a while.

I’m tired
my body seems to be telling me
to go to bed and sleep
but I know I couldn’t,
for this poem is lurking inside
and won’t be denied
as much as I try.

Can poems be found in the tired
in the brain of one who’s wired
to look here and there and everywhere
like the bird perched atop the chair
in the backyard, its head swiveling to and fro
watching for cats or humans or hawks flying low?

I guess I shall see if there is a poem taking flight
here and now teasing twilight
will it swoop and settle in my mind
will my muse become archly inclined?
Or maybe I’ll dwell on that attentive bird
and in that dwelling find the words
and take a lesson from the throat of its being
breaking forth in its flight or its singing.

Is there a verse down there I’ve been saving
while the sapling Tallow is waving
saying goodbye to the dying day
dancing the wind in ***** ballet.
Is there a line
in the recesses of time
between vital concerns
and issues that burn?

I hear the cello’s refrain
playing nearby in mournful bane
it takes me back to practicing Strauss
on the piano, filling our house
with dissonance and verve
getting on my mom’s last nerve.
But oh how music flourished and reigned -
the joy in my soul could not be contained.

Thinking of what music has meant to me
and composed in me a sweet symphony
brings me alive here in this sacred space
replaces fatigue with energy and grace.
I stayed here long enough to find
these wisps of memory and rhyme
that so often provide the spark
to lift and fly me out of the dark.

Do you know someone who heals,
in whose presence you feel whole
you do not have to bow or kneel
nor beg nor fool nor cajole?

Do you know another whose care
and ability to reach inside
erases doubt and lays you bare
your doubt and pride are laid aside?

Distrust in me is the boulder rock
that averts, delays and hesitates,
stems the tide and sadly blocks
the flowing stream of healing grace.

I thought she was on her way out
at an age cats usually die.
But still she jumps up on our laps
sleeps there knowing she’s loved,
still finicky, she eats
and when hungry she speaks.
The honeybees and hummingbirds
are out enjoying our sage blossoms.
Life all around defying expectations
of fall’s slow drying on the way to winter's dying.

Lightning and thunder
herald the strong arm of nature
awaken me to Earth.
Rains soak soil
and now I walk in the garden
green, pink, and magenta life surrounds me
its aroma suffuses my lungs
my beath makes us one -
this magnificent living orb and I.

I could hear the sky’s unsteady dripping,
comforting as I slept in the cool fall morning
the Navaho-patterned quilt
warmed my body
resting quiet in the blind pull of gravity.
How sweet life is sometimes
age dripping gripping me.
But for now I am without a care.

She was never that close to her mama
who wished her kids independent
but there was the day mama taught her to drive
out in the field where the only thing to hit
was the single large oak in the middle of the pasture.

The old stick shift was a challenge
requiring all the coordination of legs and arms
the teenager could muster.
Then mama left her alone there to practice
and she was glad being by herself,
the intimacy of learning to drive with mama made her uneasy.

Being sixteen and able to drive
a turning point for her
able now to get away from home
to find boys with her friend gave them a thrill -
adulthood’s first stirrings.

They searched for dance halls
where Cajun musicians played
fiddles, accordions and washboards
and she danced the two-step
and boys showed off their moves.

Her mama gave her a rite of passage
with those driving lessons
cut her loose into a wider world
where she would go to India
have her first baby
and practice loving her children
into their own adulthood.

I wonder if poetry is
a humble attempt to reduce
the magnificence or terror of dreams
to words.

An insect clinging to driftwood in choppy water
that’s how I felt
small alone bewildered lost
looking for a swift escape.
Not a good place to be.
Scanning the horizon for a buoy
a lighthouse a beach
any mooring.

In the next room she was reading
and with a timidity belied by the long golden strand
of our marriage,
quiet, almost shy I went to her
and said in a worn voice, I need to talk.

Me in my otherwise articulate self
was foundering throwing about for words
finally admitting I was dumbfounded
sodden by fatigue
from the self-imposed tethers
of friendship and loyalty.

Boundaries, she said, boundaries.
You have a young mind in an old body.
Let go and read some poems
and write one.

She knew what I needed.

So many hours of each day
I go about doing all the things I want
accumulating long moments
without a thought of you
but when I do stop to notice you
to commune I am again renewed
and filled with your love.

May I take a few long or short moments
with you each day
for refills.

Down from the gray mountains
you caress the emerald foothills
bejeweled with low lupine and lilies.
Storming across the plains
and fields of lively grain
you rain your glory on red winter wheat.
Barley and corn
spring up from ancient soil
eager to be young again.

By the time you ruffle the hair on my arms
you have inhaled gold
vital essence
spread it lavishly on the land
and so you arrive inside me
and sow your quiet liberty
and wisdom in my soul,
you my lovely magnificent muse.

Welcome back.

Dew collects on each tiny blossom
reflecting on
every pedal and sparkling
anger, blue, white and new
morning light multiplied
sapphire makes broken dreams worth it

Oak and Elm and Redbud trees
stand stark against winter sky
long ago shed their leaves
their bony fingers reach high.

Waiting patiently for warm days
they tend their souls in soil
they teach us a hundred ways
to dig deep for spirit oil.

Winter’s a time to dwell inside
look in dark corners there
for what we’d rather hide
invite it up for a bit of fresh air.

Through the dullness of my senses
I pause and wait a moment
for you to rise up
and pierce my soul
with your  love

... still waiting...

In this quiet lake
floating on a fugue and the Clair de Lune
the softness of your touch
soothes me smooths and sands away
rough edges.

How sweet this pianissimo movement
before the bombast trumpeting of work and muscle.
These times make a life of worth and dignity
give now its power
and hint of eternity.

One of its legs was broken
right atop the spring’s coil
the edges of the old wood
rounded and stained from rain
and oils of veined hands
hands of lovers who chose to toil
for a month of years
for their sweaty families
in from fields and factories.

This fallen veteran of wars
its leg broken in battles with the wind
and the weight of wet sheets
battles for dignity and respect
walking tall in clean clothes
to Sunday church.

Church where the broken are joined
bound to brothers and sisters
in union with their God
hanging together on the silver spring of faith
and their resplendent love.

My slightly shaky fingers
rest steady on the keys
poised to open my heart
to make room for  
a deep dive into the red fibrous
muscle of the cosmos.

A bank of fog
lays snugly upon the river
like a soft white halo
kissing the morning hello.

I feel it creeping up on the outer margins of me
like one cloud trying to overtake another
or dusk draping itself onto an old oak,
a dream trying to invade the probable.

Uncertainty seems like home to me
because when I think I have the truth
I find my way back home
where I can be the dismembered me
and grace seeps into the interstices of my mind
reflecting light in the puddles collecting there.

Doubt seems a dangerous companion
but I take its hand and pull it along with me
because it awakens me from my dusky comfort
and beckons me to the sparkling lagoon of inquiry.

Uncertainty is a favorite cousin
who on occasion texts me
with a pithy Punjab proverb
revealing a mystery worth chasing
to the dark side of the moon.