When I was a child I once sat writing
where Hemingway once wrote, at a table made of a canoe,
overlooking Turtle Bay, that little dip of Indian Ocean,
where my mother body-surfed the waves with us,
where my father spent some nervous scuba minutes
on the ocean floor, beneath a whale.
A lot has happened since then;
sometimes life is hard and sometimes
we don't know how to talk to each other.

What is a father? A Mother?  Child?
The answer is so different for so many.
Who are you?  I dream
I'm saying goodbye to you,
I don't know which of us is leaving
or where we're going but
I cry asleep and wake up crying;
and I remember there's been a few times
when there were tears in your eyes too.

And what is a Creator?  That infinite spiritual being
who fathers us, mothers us?  Acts 17 says
we are His offspring:
the children are hurting,
the children are crying,
the children are killing,
the children are dying and their dreams are dying.
But love still covers a multitude of sins.

Oh fathers of the world oh mothers
we do not say it often enough: thank you,
for what you could give, thank you,
for what you did give; and know
that I understand, finally,
that you were hurting too.

To the Creator, also, I say thank you
for fathering, mothering, even me.
We are Your offspring.
Deep down we're all dreaming the same kind of dream,
I haven't met a human yet who doesn't hurt about something;
we're all in this together if we let ourselves be

And love still covers a multitude of sins

On a Greyhound bus from NYC to New Haven
I sit down next to a skinny man named Fatz
who looks at me askance.  He says:
Long as you ain't crazy.
Long as you ain't gonna
stab me up in here.
Fatz? I say.
We agree.

When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I carry my homeland as if it were in my arms.
Remembering:
chairs made of wooden crates,
footballs made of newspapers,
cigarettes made of camel dung.
Someone once said: a best friend will help you move
and a best friend will help you move bodies
but if you have to move your best friend’s body,
you’re on your own.

When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I think about how you and I
belonged where nothing belonged:
shimmering with heat waves Africa,
rainy season pounding the mabati roof Africa,
weaver birds weighing down acacia trees with their nests,
Africa.  Where do we lay the blame and the bodies?
It could have been me holding the machete,
could have been me holding the machine gun.
Why is that?

When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I see acts of courage and sacrifice that take my breath away.
A boy, shielding his sister's body with his own.
A girl, leading a blind woman to safety.
And you, holding an old man in your arms,
his life dripping down your clothes.
What I wished for you was a place where you would not fear
the terror by night, nor the arrow by day,
nor the plague that walks in the darkness,
nor the destruction that lays waste at noonday.
I wished for you the deep red sunsets over the vast hollow of the Chalbi desert,
the brother that reads to you in your break-bone fevers,
the camel that carries you and doesn't get tired.

When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I wonder why I lived
and you didn’t.
And for your sake, and mine, and the world’s, and God’s,
I want to leave behind the failed resolve and the excuses
that keep me from leaving the world better than I found it.
When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will learn
to fear no evil.

My mind is a little street beggar boy
covered in scars and sores,
freezing by a bus stop,
no blanket nor expecting any.

                 …Tell me:
if you could remove
pain or fear
from your life
which would you choose?

Mind is a little beggar boy.
In a street market.
In a riot.
Not pretending
that a life of despair
is good enough for him
when it isn't,

more free,
more free,
so far surviving
slum and street,
decorated
with scars,
just as he is

meant to be

we gotta watch
this movie.

you are the main character.

except that
you don't have

scissors
for hands

that's the only difference

I’m standing on the edge of a broken porch in New Jersey,
pink 3 AM clouds around a bowl of stars.
This jacket’s been warm for nine years.

Yes,
I still despair sometimes.
But I am learning to claw out of it by writing it.

Also, Jesus.

Tonight on this porch I’m thinking
what are symbols of happiness, what is
happiness, experience of it, etc.

I think of:
driving an overpass into the city tonight
all that color like spilled Christmas lights
like driving up into the sky.

--Think of:
7th grade boy with an earring and soft eyes.  
Angelo.  His name is.
Translating the story into Spanish for his friend.

--Of:
The blue, the green.  Of the reef.
Pacific silence.  Coconut cathedral.

Of: The Avett Brothers song, The Perfect Space.
Of friends who are like that.

: Africa, all seasons.


Also,
Jesus