Choosing
 

Each window holds a world, no two
quite the same.
 
Each world holds a you; choose one,
the others forever lost.
 
She takes your hand. You step through.
Nothing will ever be the same.
 
You look back. The window is gone. Look
ahead. She smiles. She waits.
 
Children peer round her dress. Their shy eyes
welcome you. You forget the window.
 
You walk to your new family. A choir
of birds sings. A road unspools into the distance.
 
Previously published in A Long Time Traveling (Four-Sep Publications, 2004)

 
Annunciation


Through a window
spring arrives, perches
first on the sill — 
trilling the song of flowers;
then visits the chandelier,
dusty yellowed fixtures
brighter for her song of light;
the bedroom next, unkempt
and shabby as my wintry soul,
straightens and freshens — 
blessed by her song of breeze and shade;
I lie on the couch and listen — 
all through the neighborhood
children have come out to greet her;
when she goes to meet them,
her songs blend with sunlight
mottled by new leaves
throwing a mosaic of hope
across the room.
                       Amman, Jordan, Spring 1993
 
Previously published in A Stranger To The Land (1997 Garden Street Press)