…

This.

This log boom gliding silently
on pewter waves
tethered umbilically to a single
tug.

Squat, snub-nosed, face only a mother
could love–
This small bundle of muscle
and will

pulls a once-upon-a-time forest effortlessly–
a loggy wake.

O, the …

SUNDAY POEM

GOING AWAY

Strolling on the beach with my son
yesterday, sun licking our faces, a sparkling sea
washed over our feet. I breathed a prayer:
Thank you. Thank you for this day.

Fronds of seaweed licked the tidal …

SUNDAY POEM

NO. YES.

What gives you the right to grab what is not yours
to take? You have grown large on piracy,
swollen like a balloon on breath stolen
from children who no longer sleep or fill
their lungs …

SUNDAY POEM

FLIGHT TO FREEDOM

My ancestors launched into the Arabian Sea
in tiny coracles fragile as leaves
to escape the jihad.

Their country
torched by Arab invaders, their people
slaughtered in the name of Allah,

they entrusted their bodies …

SUNDAY POEM

TENARAMENTE

I stand at the boundary. On this side, familiar
terrain. Hills like lyric waves brushed with sage, dew
an aria on my tongue, golden wedge of light on my
elbow. My arms know precisely my baby’s
milky …

SUNDAY POEM

ELEGY

When I bend and bind
squeeze my soul into narrow shoes,
deck it out in gaudy hues
of other people’s clothing;
when I alter my inherent shape, strut
through attenuated alleyways of dialectic,
I lose you, crumble. …

SUNDAY POEM

A CAPELLA

My life is bread-making.
Daily I work the dough.

My hands blend, shape it
into supple balls and then

I wait for your sacrament
of warm brown flour, sea-salt

water, a sprinkled
benediction,

to expand in …

SUNDAY POEM

BODH GAYA

So this is where you sat,
having vowed not to move
until you’d grasped what you were looking for–
the root of human suffering.

To see things as they are. Girders
of life, architecture of light…

SUNDAY POEM

MEDITATIONS FROM THE CENTER: 5

In the center of my ribs, a silver salmon
leaps

In the center of my ribs, a rock of granite
from earth to heaven

In the shelter of an oak a red-winged
blackbird…