Telling.
On the news I see
in the cradle of mankind,
bloodlust  rampaging.
Killing machines laughing
as children cry and mothers
stare silently at nothing.

Telling.
On my porch I see
three birds sharing a perch,
eating seed.
One brown, one red,
one olive green.
One gently feeding the other.

Telling.

r ~ 4/9/14

To feel like porcelain,
fragile and easy to break
is something I'm no stranger of

Now to feel like
stone,
solid and dense,
is something I know nothing of

But to feel like
oxygen,
impenetrable, flawless;
to be the air that fills your lungs
is all I aim to be

It's crazy how
The phone rings and
I'm disappointed that
The person I thought
I loved the most calls.
Because I realize, I can't
Love them that much
If I'm here
Wishing they were you.

She couldn't express her grief
but knew this tangible loss,
felt affinity with old bones
a bond with lost loved ones.
She cleaved close to those,
it being in her very nature
a clan thing - family loyalty,
bridging a long span of years.
Her trunk trumpeted, mutely,
while lowering a sister's tusk
softly on the blanched shards
of the ancestor herds, tendered
in this final act of fellowship
from one gentle giant to another.

As water is to cleansing rain
and heat as to burning flame,
so are you to me; the same.
My fiery rain.

Fill the gutter of my mind.
Fire the coal your heart has mined.
Burn me to the end of time.
Your fire does reign.

r ~ 4/1/14

I remember the last doctor appointment that I took my father to. At the VA, of course. He wouldn't go anywhere else. Said he didn't like doctors in general, but at least these ******* didn't tell him that he needed to quit smoking. It's been a few years since the old man passed, but I recall so clearly how unfazed he was that day. How accepting of it all. How he remarked to the Doc so matter-of-factly "Of course it's spread. That's what cancers do. Just like us, they do what they have to do."  He never asked how much time he had. He knew. Told me not to tell "the girls". My sisters. **** fine old man. Always did just what he had to do.

4/2/14