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I keep looking for a light
at the end of this tunnel

And as it shrinks to the size of a
distant star by the day,

I am forced to face that I may
be in store for a longer walk home
than I thought

What is a virus,
but a force of nature?

Consider this a serendipitous
wrench thrown in the oiled
cogs of the fuming
Capitalist machine

Long have I dreamt of the day
the wheels would stop turning

Now it’s here, and I find myself
reeling like all the rest
from the whiplash of its
abrupt halt

The present overtaking me like
a sudden darkness my eyes must
adjust to, my mind grasping for
an end or a shape of it to rationalize

Aftershocks splitting the faulty
bedrock of society down the middle

A landslide of uprooted lives
crumbling into its hungry abyss

Residual dust pluming into the
doomsday sky as the last few
fingers of fading light vanish into
the coughing shadows.

– mrg
The first day of Spring
has me in a mood to
shake my remaining
winter blues

For months, the shutters
have been drawn tight

It’s passed time to crack
open a window and air
out my lingering stuffiness,

shed some natural light
in the corners of me where
darkness has settled

Sweep my mind clean of
the tired bones its been
chewing over

Scrub out the ring that has
formed around the tub from
my wallowing in self-
pity a little too long

Finally release all the
negativity, resentment,
comparison, and doubt I’ve
kept boxed up in my closet

And dust off the gratitude
I’ve been slacking on
practicing – break myself away

from the screen and out into
the bluebird day tugging on
my hair

Already I feel lighter, the
air somehow easier to breathe

I sense my internal scales
leveling again, the heaviness
lifting from my chest like
a melting snowdrift

A moon of many names is
rising tonight: crow,
sugar, worm

Its sign the same for all of us
returning to life beneath it

Who were sure we would
suffocate beneath another
year of our own dirt

Who, in our winter, have
denied our spring

She rouses within us now,
unoffended

Brings with her on the thawing
horizon an answer to our
prayers for a fresh start.

– mrg
Take a walk with me
through my soul, over
miles and miles of open land

Through the forests
brimming with honeysuckle
and songbirds

Along the jagged majesty of indigo
mountains jutting like saw teeth
from the pink-gummed horizon.

Do you see? How you color
the sky over it all?

Watch golden hour spill like a
molten avalanche across the valley –
sunset planting a rose in every shadow.

– mrg
The mind is a beast
we are all tasked with
taming

But how? When mine
ducks every lasso, throws
me from the saddle, kicks
dirt in my mouth

Is an ocean of riling blood
beneath the throbbing
bruise of sky

Colliding thunderheads
thicker than smoke threatening
a slaughter of rain

And I:
shipwrecked in its mess

A splintered mast and torn
sail swallowed by a wall of
water black as my most
poisoned thoughts

Sinking like a pearl to the
shifting, tectonic floor of
my own body

Drawing breath through
a mouthful of sand, my pruning
hands bound by the mangled
leather of a pair of reins

Yet reins cannot tame the sea.

– mrg
This skin I’ve worn
has fit me snug
and served me well
for some time now
But I feel it shifting,
bristling,
drying out,
curling up
I know the day
is coming soon
when I must
shrug it off
I have carried as much
of the past as would
cling to me
Like a glacier drags
the gravel of decades
behind it
And I am finally ready
to empty into the sea.

– mrg

— The End —