pray for rain

bonesnsnowamends, blacklivesmatter, fire, forgiveness, humanity, life, photo, photography, photos, poems, poetry, prayer, race, rain, relationships, whiteprivilege Leave a comment

pray for rain

we had no rain

for the month of May, weeks on end

of the warming winds of spring

drying the trees, the grasses, the earth

into tinder just waiting for a spark

these mountains

rounded by time, looming

over the cities, each one burning

scattered across the darkened land

like dying stars

the poets are overmatched –

so many viruses sweeping the world

at once

the breadth and scale of human stupidity

cruelty, burning and burning

we look to the eyes of the children

and see the depth of our failures

all of our fine words turning to ash

on our tongues – how

will it ever end?

listen deeply

beg forgiveness

lift a shovel

pray for rain

May 10, 2020photography, poetry

that i would do better

bonesnsnowfamily, humanity, life, mother, mothers day, parents, photos, poems, poetry, prayer, relationships, women 2 Comments

hand colored high school photo, circa 1933-34.

Margaret Ruth (Draper) Fink, 1917-2004

that I would do better

how much of my life

would I look to retrace?

not the thousand small decisions

that built to a course

I may have mistaken for true,

nor the loves and the lost loves

and shouldn’t have loved’s,

but you whose ears

have now passed beyond hearing,

who made the milk that fed me –

that I would do better.

if you could only come here and die again,

here, where this time I would hold you

as you once held me,

here, where we’d cry over parting

and joy at the end of pain.

here, where I would hold your gaze

as the light sifts from your lovely eyes,

and then close your brown eyes

with kisses.

May 2, 2020photography, poetry

enough

bonesnsnowAging, death, dying, family, happiness, joy, life, photography, photos, poems, poetry, prayer, relationships, sadness Leave a comment

my only brother, Joe, died the day after I wrote this, at age 78. perhaps this is why so many of my poems recently have concerned death. voyage well my brother…

enough

a poem arrived last night

so heavy with death I couldn’t lift it

and I couldn’t in good conscience

drop it on anybody else.

so for now, there’s just this –

an unseasonably warm spring day

robins building a nest on the porch

the constant quiet joy

of the good woman I married

nearly forty years ago. And for now

this is enough.

enough to hold me warm at night,

enough to allow me to ignore,

for a time, the pulsing sadness

that flows beneath the surface

of this happiness,

like blood beneath the skin

carrying its own form of richness

throughout this aging body,

even though I know that one day

this blood will stop, and with it must end

all of the sadness, all of the joy,

leaving only a space,

a sharp inhalation,

then a long vanishing sigh.

April 25, 2020image, photography, poetry

Caught

bonesnsnowfishing, joy, life, nature, photography, photos, poems, poetry, prayer, space, sunrise 2 Comments

if fishing is what lifts up your heart, then fishing is your prayer

— Brother David Steindl-Rast

caught

between these mountains

we are held by the sky

the way fish are held by the river

this morning, the sun

broke the surface of the clouds

casting extravagant rainbows into space

it was all I could do to keep from leaping

for the simple joy of it, tail-dancing

across the valley floor, gills flapping

striking up and out toward heaven

taking the bait completely, caught

by this implausibly beautiful world

hook, line and sinker

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	bonesnsnow on just a dog – on the loss…

old bones, new snow

poetry, images and time

Tag Archives: prayer

pray for rain

that i would do better

enough

Caught