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.

sublime pebbles beyond eyes
and mind thrown but falling
too near. My want of seeing what
I already guess, but still find
out of reach, certainty muted,
hinting at truth, recollecting
a sight as if blind, something
explosively central, but
receding like a name fused
into self but futilely grasped for.
Will I see it soon, again, or ever?

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…,

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.

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.

Like commiteemen on stick legs
they run about together
as if there were some issue,
some important question of the day.
They run up the beach
and down the beach.
They’re always just ahead of
some controversial wave.
One flies off
and the others follow.
But they land again on another issue,
pecking away at the sand,
their stick legs playing fast notes
to continue the meeting
as another wave comes in.

Saturdays with Marilyn  

We float on the pool all afternoon, weightless, reading,
our minds in other times and places,
a toe against a wall sending us off
in other directions in a world slowly turning,
the sun over our shoulders now, and again in our faces,
listening without attending to a pump that could be
the sound of the ocean, aware of time only as shade
moving across the pool, and the hungry dog barking.
We are worlds the ants find and we send them swimming.

We pass each other, gently bumping now and then,
a togetherness of sympathetic rest,
a pause in years of joint and several lives
like islands that are parts of a single country,
separate universes, contradictory in terms,
but united in a fate that could have ancient roots.
Nothing is certain, they say, but attraction beats science.
Momentum and a breeze, energies that seem pointless,
are saving mercies in the last weeks of August.

Summoned by the Sabboth sun
I entered my church of habit,  
suspecting that Jesus came
to wake the world up.

But through the prism of life
religion was a hotchpot of refracted strains,
myth and motive, innocence and guilt,
forgiveness and condemnation,
not yet refined by real love.

The history of religion stormed through
my mind, and I was its foreigner
in my own church, a back-pew Presbyterian,
a circumstantial version of a final draft.

Yet a spirit within me was joyful.
Like a point in time
that wanted to last forever,
or like a universe contained in a shell.
And more than that, it seemed to remember God,
but only way before I attended church.

Waiting quietly in my back pew,
remembering something ancient and new,
the source of every question and answer.
I wasn’t sure what to expect,
but there was a hint,
                        a power there that could start
a revolution.
But it had little to do with the sermon.

He sounded like a prince.
But then like a beast alone with her.
His words sounded like a cracked mirror
each leaf a sliver of something dark,
like the casings of my father’s bullets
in the top dresser drawer.
We never spoke of it.
The curtain was over the doorway
but I knew.

The phone rings and it’s him.

  He’s in Colorado.

  I can’t forget the day he was born.

  It was at noon, and I had a final exam

  that morning.

  It didn’t matter, they held him up for us to see.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “How are you”, I ask.

  “Fine”, he answers.

           He wouldn’t remember that day.

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 the state trooper approached my car door from behind, a voice inside me whispered:
“Good morning fathead, have you had your donut yet?”
As I pushed the down window button, the trooper said,
“May I see your driver’s license, owner’s and insurance cards?”
“Certainly , officer”, I said, “Is there some problem?”
“I clocked you at 75 miles per hour. Do you know what the speed limit is?”
“The last time I checked, it was 65,” I offered.
“There’s a sign 500 feet back that says 55.  And do you see the sign ahead?”,
was his retort.
“Yes, I see it says 55, too”, I confessed.”
“You can read”, he asked?
I replied, “Yes, of course.”
He handed me a Bible and said, “Then read Psalm 90, verse 12.”
Astounded at his unexpected and strange behavior,
I opened the book and found the words: “Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
I looked up, but there was no trooper, or police car.
I then noticed that the book I was holding was my own, little used, Bible
with my license, owner’s and insurance cards tucked neatly inside.
I continued on my way to my appointment, arriving a little late.
Before arriving I noticed a horrible accident just ahead, involving a truck and two cars.
I later learned that the truck had gone out of control,
and that all occupants in the vehicles were killed.
As I passed the accident, the voice inside me thanked the trooper for his visit,
whoever he was.

The heirs of Cain and Abel
are brother against brother.
Between them there is ill will
and one is no better than the other.

I hope against  fate
that my vote will matter
and a good candidate
will emerge from the clatter.

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?

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.”

The witness sits waiting
as he walks in, briefcase in hand,
the table lined with lawyers.
He sits, puts down a tablet and pen,
asks for the witness to be sworn in,
and begins.
The pecking order is established.
The questioner is boss
and all embark on the train of
his thought.
'Would you recount for us
the circumstances leading up to
the incident.'
She begins one more time
to recount thoughts and impressions,
superimposed on
dimly recollected facts
whose keen edges
have long dissolved.
Her preparation is as apparent
as a painted door
over the threshold of
the truth.
'You have taken an oath',
he reminds her,
but the lock on the door
clicks shut.
Carefully, then, he makes a small incision
in the web
of aggregated incompatibilities,
and the abscess behind
exudes a purulent glow
through cracks only apparent
to him.
Her lawyer blusters and roars,
attempting to blow out the flickering flame.
But the cover is cleft,
and enough of the truth can be seen
to tip the scale.

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.

No single thing stands alone
but has a link, at least,
with something else.
The key is the connection.
But links can’t stand apart
except as clues of law.
That’s the beginning
not the end.
Without law there is no chaos

Which came first is the question
of questions
and depends on what is meant
by first.
Is it beginning, i.e., what precedes,
or the source, i.e., what determines?

Get out the dogmas.
All skeptics expect them.
Between knowlegde and belief
the will intrudes.
Make a choice
or avoid the question.
The world must have order
by force if not by mind.

The law need not precede chaos,
but it must stay it.
If there is a greater law than this,
a law of being
not of necessity,
it is in a grain of sand
rather than a book of statutes.

To love the law is to love the just balance
where no one is more right for being strong,                    
rich or powerful.
It is knowing that the law
is grounded in human nature,
and that being right
is more important than being correct.                              
It is to face impossible odds
when all involved have agreed                                
that what is asked can’t be done.
It is striving to shift the tilt of the earth
from the status quo toward the steady sun of justice.
It is to take on the world and its powers
for the simple truth that will prevail                                
in the highest court of reason.
It is knowing that his client
is the essential man,                                
the child of the universe                                
whose misdeeds are forgivable mistakes.
It is knowing that his real power
is his word, and that his real wealth                      
is  his reputation.

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 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 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.

How charming he is
between rounds,
when civility doesn’t stop
the fight.
His charm keeps us engaged.
Once the fight is resumed
he thrusts wildly,
unable to see an open spot.
Why waste my fear?
His blindness is my friend.
By moving in
he only sees himself.
And it’s himself he beats.
I am only a witness,
to his self-defeat.

As I carried my jacket on a hot afternoon,
looking for relief from the heat,  
a thin woman I was walking past asked me for "food money".  
I wondered whether she was really poor,
or just a panhandler working the street.  
She was good at asking, really good.  
But I’m a skeptic where panhandling’s concerned,
because I work for a living, and always have.  
And I know a thing or two about conning,
so I’m not likely to be taken in.  
But I looked her in the eye and saw another universe.    
I put a dollar in her hand.
“God bless you, sir”, she said, as I walked away.  
I left her with that small investment to let it increase forever.  
But it felt like the increase was mine.

"A 60 year old drunk",

the bus driver who dialed 911 called him.

At that point the Youghiogheny is deep enough for a boat livery.

Over an empty, riverside park, the sky is overcaste.

I tighten my coat and pull up the collar.

Firemen stand on the shore, hands in their pockets.

A fire truck, a van, a long-hooked pole, and a stretcher wait.

A boat  trolls under the bridge. One man holds a line.

Down a hill at the end of a street,

below the City of Mckeesport,

at a 50 feet leap,

a homeless man inhaled the polluted water.

He may have heard his own cry,  

but not the bridge traffic, the laughing school boys crossing,

or the white goose honking,

above his last jump.

I watch the boat a long time,

then walk to my car with inconclusive thoughts,

respecting what I hadn’t seen,

aflop like a rag doll in cold, dark water,

unknowing fish eyes passing,

maybe a friend somewhere unaware of the event

under the bridge that hovers over the river.

You gave me a universe,
but I count myself poor.
You gave me the human race;
but I’m lonely.
You gave me Shakespeare;
but I’m jealous of his talent;
You gave me all you have;
but I feel deprived.
You gave me all the energies swerling in the heavens;
but I’m tired.
You gave me life;
but I’m preoccupied with death.
You hung on a cross for me;
      but all my mistakes were well-intentioned.
Why have you done so much for me
when you didn’t have to?
In my heart I know
        that your love surpasses everything.
If I dive into to the depths of myself
You are there, waiting for me.
I can’t understand your love.
It is so forgiving, so absolute.
There’s nothing like it in the world
I’m used to.
Your love violates everything I know.

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.

A short telephone message
came from the vet’s office:
“The ashes are ready.”
Two weeks before, “Wally” snapped
at my hand, frightened,
his hind legs paralyzed.
It was the end of a long illness.
I cradled him in a towel.
They were kind to us.
I told them he was a good dog;
that he was now in doggy heaven.
Their sympathy card is still on the refrigerator.

A wild boar colored mini-Daschund,
his ******* called him “Stormin’ Norman”
because he was the litter runt;
but we named him after
the wallaby he resembled,
and because he was a “soft” dog.

His sister, Wheedl, the alpha dog,
would try to steal his food.
She was the only one he ever growled at.
He never tilted his head, perplexed at humans,
like dogs who don’t understand us.
If we were leaving the house,  
he just looked away, resigned.
When a dropped biscuit flew under the refrigerator,
he knew where it would come out
if we hit it with a wooden spoon.
He would stand on that spot,
while his sister, a more typical dog,  
would stand where it went in.

Wheedl is now lost.
She can’t hear, and stays very close.

We have returned our gift to mother earth.

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.

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.”

when the world is cold
and hills are high
there must be eyes
to see a sky

When I can’t see
you are my eyes

you see beauty
in empty spaces
you find treasures
in unlikely places

when mine are absent
you are my eyes