The fountain gushed and spattered
near my hiding place,
and all was quiet until there were
sharp and loud puhs, as if a ******
fired his weapon...
But it was the rain drops  
on a broad-leafed bush.
Soon there was soft rain.
Its wash so quiet,
only I could hear it, ...unless
there was another near.
But I was alone.
My craft brought the moment
and the happenstance.

She had lots of attitude,
bounding across the street,
loving her own beauty,
feeling her black skin
like priceless gemstone.
When she ran away it was because
she needed time.
She’s back now like rain
beating on the window.
Her father’s eyes open like a meadow
wide in the midst of a wasted hood.

We leave many things behind
when we a cross a bridge.  
On the other side people look at us
and wonder how we see them.
We wonder, too,
how they see us.
But once we’re there
We see that we are the same.
If we look back we see the deep river
that divided us,
and the bridge that made us one.

It’s an early morning to late-at-night drive
From Pittsburgh to Jacksonville.
Half-way to Bradenton Beach,
through rough West Virginia roads
then Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia,
till the final push to our half-way motel.
Your company makes it a ride rather than a drive.
I’d drive to China with you.

My friend left me a message yesterday
and died before I got the message.
Now the message means more
than it was meant to mean
How strange it is when one’s last words
aren’t meant to be so unforgettable.

You will come like a breeze
with an airy whispiness
on a day with no hours,
when the sun doesn’t burn my skin,
and in long afternoons to wander
with time to think, and write poetry;
with time to love in the afternoon
and dine in the evening.
Or you may not come like that,
but in the din of strife
in a world gone mad
Where the poor and the sick lie needy,
and never stop coming
though I’m drained from listening
to their stories,
until I find myself among them.

thin rain ,
a flame licking a log,
the sun warming a rock,
a deer gliding,
a breeze rufflng a pond,  
a penny dropping on the floor,
God whispering my name.

They say there is no God.
How can I answer them
when God is the only answer?
What can I point to
when God is everywhere?
How can Who just Is be more?
How can I speak of God
as if God were a thing?
How can words mean
What can’t be spoken of?
How can God not be
when God is Being?
So I will not speak of,
but simply be a part of, God.
And let that be my answer.

The difference between me and my dog, is  
That she lives in the moment
And doesn’t dwell on the past or the future,
she’s always ready to love now.
I try to become more like my dog.
That’s is my secret,
Don’t tell.

I open the newspaper and read
to find out what’s happening in the world.
I’m a spectator, a witness, a critic,
I’m not a newsmaker.
I don’t have the time,
because I have reading to do,
to keep up with the news.
Is there something wrong with that?
Am I letting the world pass me by
as if I’m not a part of it?
It’s me against the world.
I haven’t checked in.
I’m not taking part in the world’s insanity.
I can’t fix the world.
But I’m keeping up with the news.
I know what’s going on.
I’m a spectator, a witness, a critic.
I wonder if I’ll be able to read my obituary?
You know, to keep up with the news.

You are so sensuous

It makes me wince

Like the sky would.

Could the moon speak of you

out of time?

No one could wonder more.

You are so far away,

So near.

When did I know you

so many lives ago?

I glimpsed God

and lived.

Stricken thoughtless

but forever knowing.

Blinded like Paul,

but rescued liked the man born blind.

Forever seeing.

Forever loving.

When nothing in the world
I turn to for distraction,
not a book, movie, scene or symphony
has an appeal like the silence of God,
how can I not be still
while pushing the plow,
and look to see or feel Him
with my heart.
Then a bursting of something within
that I don’t have a name for
but know Who it Is,
the One I’ve always known.
The Lover of All!
Waiting for me.
Always waiting.
Silent.
But that doesn’t mean
I don’t know what He has to say.
I just want to listen all day,
care not for visions,
and let the world think me a fool.

Walking can’t happen without a thought,
but running can happen by impulse
yet they seem the same,
whether thought or impulse.
A sudden noise can be the same.
Someone can pull a trigger without thought,
intent, or even impulse.
But holding the gun foresees the act,
sets the stage,
and owns the blast.

I dreamt that she was gone.
To where, there was no clue.
In the dream of panic
I felt lost.
There was no way to stop the dream.
I had to see through
all it’s insane and terrifying
turns of gloom.
Sweating I must have turned
in the sheets that slowed my efforts
to do what the insane attempt to do.
When I awoke my still-startled mind
had a weak grasp of another day.
The unreal reality of the dream
still held its dreadful terror.
But She was still there,
asleep beside me,
still breathing.
But I don’t know
if I terrified myself,
or if some warning messenger
came to me,
a part of myself, perhaps,
that sees the road ahead
beyond where my headlights
lighten the dark,
the terror of the blind
being a kind of sight.

In summer’s last days
of late September
with the sun in frozen clouds,
a flock of birds flew southwest.
The world was in turmoil
but took no notice
of clouds and sky.
Yet something there
caused wings of joy
to flow again as it did once
when I was one with the sun
and the clouds and the birds.

The Lord is my true mind.
He has given me a universe for my home.
He gives me a thousand beautiful things
to calm my anxieties.
He leads me in His ways.
Even when I am surrounded by disasters
and cruel people, his angels guide me
to His safe places.
He heals my scars of life with wisdom.
His blessings flow over the errors I have made
and the wounds I have inflicted.
He follows my wayward steps with his goodness and love.
And I and all my brothers and sisters
are one with Him forever.

I was an old child
Not knowing from whence I came
or where I was going.

I left home at fourteen,
and pursued a calling,
then another,
and wandered for forty years.
Whatever I found,
was good for the journey.
Wherever I stopped, my body was at home,
but my soul still wandered.

I grew a beard
and lost some hair;
but my soul
still wandered.

When I made another home I planted my wandering stick
It rooted, and its branches bore fruit
and my soul still heard the ancient call.

Now I am old,
formed like the world
recalling from whence I came
and won’t be deterred
from where I’m going.

A trusted friend told me
That Shakespeare wrote King Lear
while quarantined.
How I can relate to that!
I’ve been quarantined for months
during a pandemic,
reading the great books,
and attending to the writing,
I didn’t have time for
until now.
I’m forced to wait
until the quarantine is over
like a space shuttle
waiting to return to earth.
Staying home is hard.
I’d rather flee to the supermarket
or make some other excuse to get away.
But how can I ignore this opportunity
to drop my know-it-all attitude,
raise the white flag
and ask God to show me a better way.
For instance:
How do my life decisions
look in retrospect?
What kind of person have I become?
What can I do to be a better person?
If I follow the wisdom
of the wise,
and higher guidance,
what will I do,
and how will I live?
What can I do
to make the world,
at least in those places
where I am a part of it,
a better place?
And who are the people
I’ve lost touch with?
Is this a good time to reach out to them
by a call or a letter?
To do all this
I’ll need more time
not less.
And my life will be better
for doing them.
Rather than ask
what the world will be like
when this solitude is over,
I’ll ask: “What will I be like?’’
I can’t be thankful for a pandemic.
But I can make the best of one.

In court he knew the territory.
It was often perilous
and the law wasn’t always just.
But he was equipped for all that.
Even surprises weren’t uncommon.
He knew where his conscience was
and how to keep it.
When he retired the courtroom
was just a memory
and his game was gone,
like an aging athlete’s.
For anyone else
staying out of court
would be desirable.
But he was now a pin
in the world’s alley
seeing the ***** rolling down
with no alternative but
fate itself
as it moves toward
its finale.
He could choose
to play a minor part,
and archive his
old victories.
Or become an old crank
fighting for things
no one remembers.
Then wait for praise
at the end,
as a admirable advocate
for things that used to matter.

A voice inside asks:
Did the sun rise again?
Another asks:
What of it,
doesn’t it always?
And so the dialogue goes.
The mind is a swamp.
Some days are bright.
Some days ****.
Yet being alive
is worth something.
What?
Did the sun rise again?
Are the flowers pretty?
Are there birds flying?
Are there clouds in the blue sky?
Be quiet.
Thank them.

While reading the morning paper
by the garden
I saw a monarch fly by
and land among the dahlias
where the argiope
was displayed.
Neither a democrat nor
a republican she belonged
to a different genus,
once worm now butterfly.
But for the argiope
her genus was food.
Though she and the argiope,
for me, were works of art.
Both exquisite
to be sure.
Things of beauty and wonder.
But nature has her own way.

I followed ways of where
and travelled  thens of when
and I thought I knew.

I climbed ups of if
and waited alones of there
and I believed I saw.

My young felt close to gold
as close as life to love
and love I felt I had.

Then you came unintended
with heres of where
and nows of when.

You were yous of who
and forevers of how long.
You are gold of have.

and love of be.

It’s been 50 years
Since she said: ”I do”.
Since then I’ve spent,
maybe a month’s time, waiting.
I don’t wear make-up
or have much hair to fix.
And my clothes are
conservative.
So much of my education
came while waiting for her.
I’ve learned to slow down
and think about why
I’m always in a hurry,
and why I always have to
be doing something,  
why just being is being lazy,
why thinking is wasting time,
why using my senses
to observe what surrounds me
isn’t important,
why reading a book
is less important
than doing something,
in short,
why waiting
is wasting time.
All that took
maybe a month
in 50 years.

I didn’t have to climb.
The mountain came to me.
I heard of a man who hit the lottery
and was set for life.
But that is nothing
compared to what happened to me
on the mountain.
What I saw and learned
no mind can grasp,
no heart can deny.
So I know it and I don’t know it.
But I can’t deny it.
What can I say?
Who would hear it?
I would be drowned out
by common sense
and hard hearts.
So should I hide the light?
What I saw
would set the world free.
It would be full of love.
There would be heaven on earth.
The light I saw is power.
Am I a part of the world or not?
Was the light just for me?
Those are the questions.
For what it’s worth
I’ll hide the light no more!

I think our souls have a name.
Mine is Jack.  
But when I went to school they called me John.
Since then that’s how it’s been.
John’s the name on my law license.
It fits the clothes I wear
better than they fit me.
That’s not the way it was when I was Jack.
Today, if someone calls me Jack
we are family.
I’m a child again.
The world is innocent.
All the badness goes away.
Someday I hope God will say:
“Welcome home, Jack.”

It isn’t just words.
It’s a person in the desert
thirsting for water and drinking it in.
It’s an empty bucket dipping into a stream to be filled.
It’s a shallow space allowing itself to grow.
It’s a root seeking loam.
and a wanderer coming home.

Who’s the best?
It can only be one.
The best is enemy of the rest.
Of the good.
Of the different.
There’s always one better.
A later one learns from,
and improves on,
an earlier one.
The game evolves
and is refined.
Something new
is added
that overshadows the old.
Beethoven learned from Hayden.
Michael Jordan is 6’6’’ tall.
So is Julius Irving.
But Michael learned from Julius.
Who can judge
which butterfly is the best?

City of Dreams

I knew I had to be somewhere.
But wherever I turned there was
enchantment,
like when I was a child
and everything new was exciting.
Every building invited me
and every turn drew me in.
Every choice was perfect.
I had no inner GPS telling me
where I had to end up,
how to get there,
or how far I was from it.
But I didn’t care
because I was free
for the moment,
and I didn’t want
to wake up.

Was it a dream or a memory?
I’m not sure.
But I saw a place somewhere,
where there were shops and houses without doors.
In the poetry shop
Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Gerard Manly Hopkins and Sylvia Plath were seated around a table
enchanted with the magic of words.
Ogden Nash came in with a dish of P’s and Q’s.
They all broke out with laughter.
I walked in and they offered me a chair.
As an amateur poet I was out of my mind with the occasion.
In the science shop
Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and the sage who discovered the wheel
were standing around a telescope.
I showed them my cell phone.
They threw up their hands and said: “What Now?”
Michelangelo, Picasso, Raphael, Norman Rockwell and Andy Warhol
were standing by the art shop looking at a cloud.
Andy said: “Not even Michelangelo can paint a cloud.”
Michelangelo laughed and said: “Who do you think I am, God?”
I remembered his sculpture of David and thought to myself
that it is as perfect as a cloud.
There were so many other shops
for everything imaginable.
I noticed the largest building,
the “Sinners Anonymous Club”.
The sign read: “All Sinners are Welcome”.
I walked in and they recognized me.
Adolph, Genghis, Judas and Pontius
and a lot of other famous and ordinary sinners
were having their 12-step fellowship.
In their midst was Jesus who said:
“This is my favorite place.”
“This is where I’m welcome, appreciated and needed.”
I stayed a good while.
The crowd swelled.
Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists,
and more sinners poured in.
Presidents, generals, movie stars, sports greats, religious leaders, composers of great music, great doers of the world.
I couldn’t believe it.
In my selfish heart I wished that I had brought a baseball
for autographs, at least the Babe’s.
I’ll never forget Jesus smiling and laughing.
It seemed like the place was filled with grace.
I had the ironic feeling that it was almost
like being in church.

Light hangs on a cloud
like the shy glance of John Wayne,
and wings that fly.
It came to my mind
in a flash and then was gone,
but the world changed.
Four crows were flying west.
Sunlight reflected off one crow’s wing.
The flash came and went.
I didn’t see the earth turning.
But it did.

John Hayes

The sheriff and I were waiting
in a crowded room.

We spoke of time, not days and hours,
but time itself, the uncertain duration,
like water in a small bucket we sense wasting,
as if eternity could be frittered away.

We spoke of space,
the essential nothingness that stretches
throughout the universe,
never seen or really understood,
but more indispensable than air.

We spoke of things that are real,
like the county issue desk he was using.
He rapped it with his knuckles and said:
“This is real”, then he reconsidered and said, “...for now.”
It stood there passing away before us,
like refuse in space-time, not really real,
not mattering at all.

We spoke of God, but stumbled for words,
seeking the greatest simplicity,
saving content from form.
No old  or new idea was good enough,
and we were now more lost than before.
Yet we wanted nothing more than to speak the truth
all day, and always…,

It was a heart attack.
Sudden, and a real surprise.
The next thing I knew I saw him.
He wore a dark suit and red tie.
He had the image of a lawyer
and I didn’t expect that.
But, as a lawyer myself
it felt familiar.
I could see in his eyes
that he was ready to make a deal.
I asked for one wish, and he agreed.
There was something I always wanted to do
but it had been impossible.
I wanted to cross-examine ******.
The Devil said: ”Now’s your chance.”
We were suddenly in a courtroom.
Adolph was brought in
and placed under oath.
“Isn’t it true”, I asked,
“that you murdered millions of Jews?”
“Not alone”, he answered,
“but yes, I ordered it.”
I was overwhelmed by this admission
of unimaginable inhumanity.
I lost my courtroom composure
and yelled: “How could you do that?”
He answered; “You’re not so innocent
as to judge me.”
Even less composed now, and taken aback, I asked:
“What do you mean?”
He said: “You’re doing it, too!”
“Millions of your black brothers and sisters
live in concentration camps you call ‘ghettos’.”
“And you go along with it.”
“They have bad housing and schools,
and lack essential things
because of where they have to live.”
“And you don’t give it a thought.
You even blame them for it.”
“Don’t you get it?”
“Don’t you see how it kills their chances for life?”
I objected and blurted out:
“Who’s on trial here?”
He answered: “You wanted the truth
and I’m giving it to you.”
I turned to the Devil and said:
“Are you going to let him go on like this?”
The Devil said: “I think he’s just getting started.”