A sea of nettles and nails that scream their injustice at you
People who seem like they've shaken off their prickly outsides and their hatred
Turning to congratulate them
Embrace them
Before you find the truth beneath their pillowy covering
Nails can be blunted and nettles can be softened but they remain below your surface,
Waiting for the right moment to be sharpened and grow back their stings

I see your injustice and I raise you my peace
It hurts to tear out your nails and to burn off those nettles
But oh god does it hurt more to walk your tender, soft body through that forest of pain

Lived my whole life
near water or mountains
and lemme tell ya,
there's nothin like wakin up
next to something beautiful.

I spent all of this weekend drinkin,
partyin and just havin an all around
great time with people I love.

This past month, man oh man,
did I seriously have to revisit
some things that I thought I needed
to stay the hell away from, but
whoh how wrong I was.

Jimmy Buffett songs and
Brand New shows,
takin life as it comes
and givin up everything
for a chance at love.

I can write about God
and morality and whatnot
but if I really dig deep down,
what really matters to me
are the quiet moments.

Those seemingly insignificant
memories, such as teaching
my very young cousin #3 how
to fold toilet paper, so that
his *** didn't itch, evidently
his dad couldn't teach him that.

Am I still a boy?
Hell yes I am, and hopefully
always will be, never giving up
that magic, that wondrous sense
of possibility.

Is it a bad thing, that in moments
of forgetfulness I greet my grandmother
as Wendy Lady and she replies, "Hello Boy."?
Do I still watch the Goonies with rapture
and bliss and yell "Hey you guys!!!"

And yet I have walked through fire and death,
seen darkness in all his guises,
lived and ate and breathed horror
as only Conrad can recount.

I can cook, and clean, and provide for myself;
having lived off and on alone for years
so dare you not think me a child,
but my god I'll never give up that
sense of life, that belief and hope
that any and every day may yet be
and adventure worth the telling.

At one time,
in the midst of my journey
happened I upon Emmaus
and the Pilgrims many there
lost in the ecstasy of transfiguration.

Those that lived there still,
residents in a land of many wonders
welcomed them, and myself
with strong arms and hot food
warm beds and burning love.

So many times upon this Road,
had strangers met and fed me
throwing blankets of goodwill
over my weary shoulders
and still I am amazed and overcome.

How many stories to tell?
How many loves have they loved,
and lives they have lived,
and woes they have suffered
and joys they have known....

This was the Feast of All Soul's
and so the wine began to flow
in celebration and memory
of both the living and the dead,
those among us still
and those gone from these shores.

Amidst the shared revelry
and also the quiet supplication
sat I, at home and yet alone
remembering music and happiness
such as this from many lifetimes
ago, so it seemed.

And of a sudden
without invitation of expectation,
approached a woman, garbed as a Bedouin
whom without glancing
placed a wooden rosary in my hand
and whispered the following benediction.

"Allah, Great and Glorious,
watch over him who sits alone,
lost from himself and seeking
that which he cannot find;
provide unto him with the Prophet's
(Blessings Unto Him) resolve,
and the Christ Child's compassion,
that he may find what he journey's toward."

Kissing my forehead,
as my grandmother used to do,
the great woman disappeared
into the night without a sound
and I, I sat in reverence and prayer
till at last, I felt a burden
finally pass me by.

Who will listen to
the unspoken words
the unsung songs
the silent screams

Who will witness
the unseen pain
the unshed tears
the wounded heart
the restless soul

Who else will listen to the unheard?
Who else will see the unseen?

Kyrie Eleison*

Father, my Father, Glory unto Thee, creator and sustainer of our Earth, hear my prayer. I found a single strand of hair in my car, long and reddish brown, and I wept.

I wept not for myself, or for something that I had lost, but for an idea which that represented, a yearning for something greater than myself, for a finale end to this loneliness I have run from for uncounted years.

Yet I understood that we, your children, are more than abstractions, more than symbols, more than mere variations on a theme.

We are the landscaper who left a single bunch of flowers unmowed in an open field, we are the children attending a theater in Palestine dedicated to self expression and non-violence, we are the penitent kneeling at the pillar of St. Simon in Syria, we are the bus driver giving free rides in Queens, we are the random person who pulled a needle out of my friend's arm one night, we are humanity, and our journey is a long one.

Many of us feel abandoned by You, many don't believe in You at all, and many, such as myself, are merely lost and wondering, searching for signs You have left along the way, managing as best we can to get back to that place where You live.

I thank You though, thank You for the beauty that is all around us, but more than that, I thank You for helping me to see it, to see the World, not as I am, but as You are. I am trying, and perhaps one day I shall succeed.