Dear authors and poets,
                      With works that inspire and bring tears,
                       Do you intend the interpretation?
                       Do you mean what we think?
                       Or do you simply write and let us make-up what we
                       Want to see? What we need to hear?
                       We are taught be scholars the deeper meanings,
                       Metaphors, and life lessons.
                       We give you so much notoriety and acclamation.
                       Is it deserved?
                       Maybe it is maybe it's not.
                       We may never know.
                                                   Sincerely,
                                                                 An aspiring writer

I pull at the strands of his shirts, his sweaters and his jeans.  
I become a seamstress and know he will come to me.

He buys new clothes instead.

I want to become a diver
like the scuba guys in the Thai cave
risking death to save life,
going deeper into convoluted passages
of darkness to pull life from it.

I want to become a heart surgeon
transplanting energizing mitochondria
into babies’ dying hearts
to revive and save damaged cells.
Oh to receive from the gods of creativity
an infusion of fresh energy
into this old body
and renew flagging cells
with a flowering fragrance
as sweet and unique as Plumeria!

May this diving deeper
be as fruitful now as it has been
in the decisive moments
I was able to conquer pride and self
to reach out to others
whose spirits had frowns
whose life energy was down.

I know: thinking, reading and writing
are not quite enough to reach and taste
the fruits of angels.
Like the classic tension
between “faith and works”
“deeper” means a marriage
of information and application
to get transformation.

And so these moments of writing poems
and diving deeper, rising higher
for the creative spirit
are not divorced
from kindness and reaching out
in friendship, intimacy, and love,
from taking time and spending energy
beyond these meditative walls
embracing life where it calls.

I am a diver and a surgeon
a spark striker, a flame keeper
always desiring
to move
deeper, deeper, deeper.