I elect myself
to the nation of me
It is my office to love

No place in my nation
for hate for fear
Every border is a bond
not a boundary

Some neighbors will rub
Rub away, I say!
I will grease your grit.

I’m not pulling back
I’m pulling forward
And you will come with me

You will move forward too
And you will be the nation of you
And it will be your office to love

What if the only thing admired was kindness?
Compassion seen as sexier than mean?
Desire for wealth condemned as worse than blindness,
And competition thought to be obscene?

What if we felt no fear of other creatures,
And, like God, knew them beautiful and good?
Then, childlike, we could let them be our teachers
And educate ourselves in fields and woods.

Perhaps then we could face our deaths with courage,
And live our lives in peace and harmony -
But Nature's tooth and claw will keep us worried:
We sacrifice sense for security.

No leaders, heroes, movie stars above
Can fill our fearful void: there's only love.

The pane through which I cannot pass
I beat my head against -
Recoil surprised with addled brain -
Sit stunned with no defense.

My soul is outlined on the glass
My wings, head, body - all.
I sought safe passage, found instead -
Invisible - a wall.

I died without my quota made,
The puzzle still unsolved.
I saw a pattern, pieces fit,
But never found an edge.

So death provided boundaries -
Beyond it was a void -
Except for what I’d left undone,
Those jigsaw asteroids.

And so I hope that there will be
A consciousness out there
To pick up pieces that I missed
And make my life all square.

This green is just a thin veneer
on a black rock with a molten heart,
the thin crust barely cool enough
to let the tender green life start,

and on this film of green there moves,
imagining autonomy,
a viral life form, ravenous,
that thinks it must be all God sees.

All species go extinct, it's true -
exceptions to this rule are none -
but we, the species poisonous,
still feel we are the only one

that counts - so life won't end for us;
we go someplace where nothing dies,
and so we **** without remorse
and slit our own throats with our lies.

This morning nighthawk's in a zooming mood -
no bat-flap flutterings or squawking calls;
maybe Miss Luna with her huge balloon
calling harvest home, promises of fall.
His corporal stripe across each slender wing,
slim body more like arrow than like jet,
a final search for fuel before going
to Mexico, Peru, or further yet.

And for the fall I too, hopeful, prepare,
but cleaning out rather than storing up.
A surplus almost caught me unaware,
weighed down by money, memories, and stuff.

As slender as a nighthawk I might fly,
and carry only peace into the sky.

Awake! What color is a cloudless dawn
Not? The night was black enough, the gibbous
Moon mere silver ghost on the dewy lawns,
But morning brings a subtle rainbow chorus:
Is that not violet shading into green?
Is orange adequate for that fiery glow?
The transformation to full day seems slow,
But look away a moment and the scene
Has changed: the grayest mockingbird will have
A breast as yellow as a meadowlark;
The soothing blue of earlier gives way
To nearly painful brilliance. No more dark
Or near dark: now the shadows share the hues
Of dawn, and songbirds celebrate the news!