For the Then Little
The hand touches
things of this world and transforms them.
It’s no accident that the face
of God is in the palm.
What the hand would do
for world peace
is seldom mentioned
in the larger colony of hands.
The hand could be an angel if it tried.
See how the fingers open like wings.
In a Village of Trees, I am Seldom Lost
They comfort me.
Their long shadows shutter the ground
but don’t keep me from walking amongst them.
They sway like Hawaiian dancers,
their skirts of leaves swishing soft melodies,
I, a midget amongst them.
Their bellies fill with sap and longing,
while their festive bark is like metamorphic rock.
I cannot count the times a tree has invited me
to stillness.
I am shameless in their company.
In Light Lit Day
Grass greens while diminutive buds
begin their mini explosions
into blasts of full bloom.
The pond fills with Thompson Peak
run off, my feet flounder
on uneven ground.
But oaks don’t mind
the yard’s massive potholes,
and I wonder if oaks
are ladders to mountains
and if one could sip streams
from mountain air by perching
on a high, sturdy branch.
In ancient times, oaks
were sacred because they existed
in three worlds: the underworld,
the middle world and upper heavens.
They were deemed an oracle tree.
What shaman or wise being
might appear today to warn the world
Quit your wars, your greed.
Uneven ground jolts me,
my middle world a toss-up.
Roots don’t always steady trees.
Potholes are sometimes trip-holes.
World, grant me ability
to fasten belief in a tight grip,
let my feet sip from streams,
my toes play tag
in the shoe of traveller earth.
Swat your pencil as much as you like.
Nothing good will come of it.
Demand your pencil walk
blindfolded through landmines.
Supposing it’s sent to fight
in Ukraine or Palestine.
More than gear and heavy boots
would weigh it down.
Pencils don’t come
with no breakage guarantees.
Small children smothered
in cement won’t rise.
Explosions skyrocket souls
over the ruined landscape.
A pencil is useless in such times.
Erasure won’t work.
Even the Greek and Roman writers
knew lead was toxic.
Easy to Miss Something Small
A ball of feathers snugs the cinder blocks of my cabin,
round and plump and when I turn the clump over,
it’s a tiny sparrow, hazy eyes already disappearing
like The Father who was seldom present,
who faded into whiskeys’ distance,
his black lunch pail a miniature coffin
carried on a chain of regret.
Listen up, you’ve waisted years on your father,
stay with the bird you tell yourself,
but this miniature bird holds significance.
A miscalculation, knocked dead against the window,
what I surmise happened to this sparrow
that rests in the cradle of my shovel,
but it wasn’t judgement’s error when Father
barrelled through Woolworth’s display window,
drunk on Jack Daniels.
Now where to put my small God—
out to sun, or on freshly fallen oak leaves
so, my sparrow might become a tree.
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