Anything, Everything


“Find everything you’re looking for?” a clerk asks
and I say, “I’m still looking for world peace.”
“Can I get you anything else?” a nurse asks
and I say, “Yes, a safe haven for refugees.”
For a millisecond, their faces soften
as they take a deep breath of imagining
then laugh or shake their heads
or commiserate. For a few minutes
we might even discuss
our planet’s highest possibilities.
Maybe that deep breath,
that imagining,
is a starting place. 





How To Soothe


When babies cried
my father picked them up,
politely, as if to apologize
for their locomotion issues,
then stepped outside.
He named trees, birds, rain.
"This is grass," he'd say.
“In no time at all
you'll be running on it."
Babies calmed at once,
eyes wide, awake
to the planet's glories.


I learned from my father
it's a matter of walking
inside to out
with someone capable
of truly seeing.





Compost Happens


Nature teaches nothing is lost.
It's transmuted.

Spread between rows of beans,
last year's rusty leaves tamp down weeds.
Coffee grounds and banana peels
foster rose blooms. Bread crumbs
scattered for birds become song. 
Leftovers offered to chickens come back
as eggs, yolks sunrise orange.
Broccoli stems and bruised apples
fed to cows return as milk steaming in the pail,
as patties steaming in the pasture. 

Surely our shame and sorrow
also return,
composted by years
into something generative as wisdom.