I suppose I should
be grateful for all
the people and events
of which and of whom
I am usually unaware
who are daily doing
deeds without awareness
of me yet enable me
to go about my life
oblivious and happy
(November 24, 2025)
-
At an End
“The heart lies to itself because it must”
—Jack Gilbert
What fragments have been lost
along the way? What holes filled
with other’s dry detritus?
other’s bland conjectures? These limits
become, over time, tattered as well—
perhaps more comfortable and loose,
easier to disguise time’s misgivings;
easier than telling the truth.
(November 21, 2025)
-
My Ghost
by
My father’s ghost has returned
to haunt me after decades
of silence. I only knew
his decline; now, I’m learning
my own, a slow remembrance.
I’m no Hamlet; to avengehis death, I would kill myself,
there would not be a question.
Telling that story once more,
I am what remains of him.
At night looking for water,not as broken as he was,
I see him in the mirror,
frowning at me from the side.
My body reflects his own.
My mom used him as a threateven after he was gone:
If you could be half the man
he was…if he could see you…
what do you think he would say?
She has been gone for years now,
while he hangs on the edges
darkly brooding as in life,
a storm always eminent,
on the verge of violence.
I saw my future at eight,and a clearer past today:
his presence was an absence
always nearby, yet distant
like a shadow on water.
(November 16, 2025)
-
We Live in Silence
Silence is silent.
Except it is not,
just ask John Cage.
He’ll look at you
for four minutes
and 33 seconds.
In VermontI met a man
from Boston.
He could not sleep;
the forest was loud
compared to the city.
In zen, the goalis to still the mind
into silence:
to be aware
to such an extent
to become extant.
In an anechoicchamber, one hears
one’s bones,
and the thrum
of one’s blood
beneath the skin.
(November 14, 2025)
-
What One Hears is What One Hears
by
The wind gusts in bursts
rushing leaves down the street
in a spasm of seasonal ritual,
as if a pattern’s repetition
creates a meaning separate
from our own simple noticing.
I have a hard time hearing
these voices of the world
through the constant clatter,
through the daily dazzle
and flash of the spectacle
playing in the wind’s
petulant laughter.
My screams are too loud.
To maintain my illusion
of safety, of purpose,
I whisper stories to myself.
I know stories are stories
and how they move through
each other like incestuous ghosts,
or confluent rivers, shaping
one another as they change.
I know change is incremental,
so I listen closely to my heart.
I notice a difference, but
am unsure what is different—
my notice, or the angle
of the wind through the trees.
(November 13, 2025)
-
memento mori
by
and soon enough
your last tomorrow
will arrive
you will ask afterthe time, then shrug,
“that can’t be right”
but it isand it has
and you’re not
(November 7, 2025)
-
Caught in this Spiral
these wounds will not heal into darker scars
these words will not heal into darker scars
they will burn forever on tongues of flame
they will burn on lecherous tongues of flame
what slow darkness grows in from the edges
what slow darkness reaches in from the edge
there is nowhere to go but further in
there is nowhere left except what is here
caught in this spiral as vast as the sea
the words shift along incomplete circles
what songs can be heard in this vast darkness
what old music must play against the night
unformed patterns shatter into fragments
like laughter breaking across an old fear
(November 4, 2025)
-
Semi-Quick Response to There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
I finished There are Rivers in the Sky a couple of days ago. Usually I try to respond as soon as I finish a book, but this time it had to ferment a bit before I could respond. Not that the couple of days more has made it more clear what I am thinking. We read one of her books, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, for RFB last year. I really liked it, so I looked forward to reading Rivers in the Sky. Like 10 Minutes, Rivers is built around multiple story lines which by the end of the novel converge nicely without sounding forced. Both books stress the importance of community, 10 Minutes on a small group of divergent friends, whereas Rivers weaves a broader tapestry across centuries if not millennia. The connecting thread across time is the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest written piece of world literature arising from the earliest civilization. Which of course, is significant to the novel as a whole. One of the story lines is set in Victorian England (the height of the English Empire), when England is pillaging the past Empires of relics and putting them on display in the British Museum. One of the relics they find is the before unknown Epic of Gilgamesh. It is found in fragments, over time, mainly in the abandoned ruins of the once great city of Nineveh. Another story line involves a small group of people, descended from the Sumerians, considered to be devil worshippers by the dominant religious groups. While the third story line, also descendants from the region of Mesopotamia, Iraq, who have immigrated to contemporary England. Through all three threads, the importance of story, the written word, tradition, and change flow like the rivers,(The Thames and Tigris), which dominate the imagery in the novel. The pollution, re-birth(in the case of the Thames), the destructive and nurturing aspects of the rivers and water in general are constantly in play. Overall it was an enjoyable experience.
One quote out of dozens I underlined: “Hatred is a poison in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire—because they want to have them in their possession. It’s all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear! Then there is the third kind—when people hate those they have hurt”
-
Haunted
The ghosts have returned.
Along an edge, they tremble
into view, then vanish,
if I turn to look.
It is best I ignore them,
as they roll and tumble
near my hesitant feet.
I fear to step on them.
They are soft like kittens,
but with longer memory,
and a sharper clarity.
Details bend, slowly feel
their way, to insert tendrils
along darker fissures
to occupy spaces reserved
for conflicts of the present,
but now quiver gently
with decades of regret.
(October 30, 2025)
-
Dance Without a Center
The fool’s dog’s sharp yip
is not dire enough
to ward off the fall
into the canyon’s echo.
Is it worth the death,
this life? The timidity
to make an attempt
is inlaid as context.
The sun sets in context
of a new risen dawn.
The view of other’s views
block vision’s sole vista.
What’s left is improvised—-
each day a blurred whirl,
simulating a design,
as the dance continues
teetering along an edge,
one leg in the air.
(October 25, 2025)
-
Lost at Sea
by
People try to talk to me.
I hear, perhaps, half,
then, as they go on, drift,
moved as if by tides.
Alone, most days, slipping
slowly from book to thought,
to roll my tongue through words
plays with incoherence.
There need be notes like stones
left as markers to return;
or bits of marginalia
tossed along the shore
to hint towards an origin,
I can no longer explain.
(October 24, 2025)
-
Fall
by
storms rage without rain
like shrouds across the dry earth
trees drop their dead leaves
each night grows longer
one more minute of light less—
incremental death
i’m tired of trying—
too cynical to pretend
darkness has not come
it is ironic
with the weight of centuries
nothing can be done
the sycamore’s branches fallI fear spring will not return
(October 21, 2025)
-
conventional wisdom
an old god
with a patina
of reason, like
the verdigris
on bronze statues
in the park
lives an assumption
of an intentional design
rather than the result
of time whispering
a mother’s lullaby
relentlessly and consistently
its comforting dream
until what we are told
and what we believe
and what we are
are all the same
right or wrong
(October 19, 2025)
-
auspices
by
to fill the soft holes
the auspices
have left behind
for our memory
like tattered tarot cards
to make sense of
for our past to exist
in this present
dénouement
which of course
our future will
ignore as blasé
as conventional wisdom
bangs out a beat
on a tattered drum
we must insist
like the birds
how this story goes
(October 16, 2025)
-
The Price of Justice
I believe I was 34. I had three children under the age of 3. I had taught 150+ 13-14 year old students each year for the last five years. It was my first time to be on a jury. The defense attorneys should not have let me on the jury. If they were doing their job of defending him, they should not have let several of us on the jury: the older church going Christian grandmother; the trainer for the local University’s swim team (18-22 year old young women). Looking back, I figure his lawyers thought we would be sympathetic to the youth minister because we understood the dreams and desires of adolescent young girls. We understood how they trusted us, and even loved us. We understood the accusations which could be thrown because of childish misunderstandings. Fortunately we did understand, and came to the verdict that the youth minister of the Baptist church near Dallas had broken the promise of in loco parentis, the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. That part of that promise that was to not mentally and sexually abuse a thirteen year old girl.
It was a civil trial. Both the former youth minister and the Church were being sued. The statute of limitations for a criminal trial had expired. The young woman was now 21 years old. The prosecutors told us that the evidence for a civil trial was not the same as a criminal trial. It was not beyond a reasonable doubt, but that the preponderance of evidence that lead to a guilty verdict. The preponderance of evidence dropped on us in thick slabs of revulsion for eight hours each of the days the trial lasted. We were asked to determine what percentage of responsibility for the sexual abuse of the young woman lay with the church, or the youth minister.
The trial, they said, would last about 4 days. In the end it went on for two weeks. We heard testimony from the ministers of the church, the deacons, the church women volunteers, the other young members of the church; all those who also went on church trips, attended youth activities organized by the youth ministry, went to pool parties sponsored by the church where the children played games in the pool with the youth minister; who remembered how he and she sat on the edge of the group around the fire at the beach while others sang songs of joy. We heard from the therapist she went to for years after the youth minister’s rape of the young woman. We heard from the young woman. We were given access to her detailed adolescent diary. The same questions were asked of each witness. The answers that were given were so monotonously repetitive that by the end of the second week, I could have answered for each of the witnesses who were called.
We did not hear from the former youth minister. He was a minister of a church in Ohio at this point. He could not be forced to attend a civil trial in Texas. He had moved on from his days as a mere Christian minister to the young souls in his charge in suburban Dallas. God had called him to a new ministry. He was the head of his own church, a respected man. He could not even be impelled to make any monetary restitution that we decided to lay upon him. He was free, forgiven by society, if not by God.
The deliberations in the small room in which we sat were not about whether the events happened; it was beyond debate that the youth minister did what he was accused of doing, but instead circled around how much the church should have known, or did know about the abuse. We were charged with what percentage of guilt lay with each of the defendants, and how much the total monetary fine should be for the actions of the youth minister, who ultimately would not have to pay anything for what he had done to the young woman. What was the price of rape? How much should an institution be held accountable for the actions of an individual member of an organization? Ultimately, we came to a consensus that he was responsible for 80% of the verdict. It was strange sitting in the room, listening to other men arguing for smaller responsibilities to be laid upon the church (because they knew the minister would pay nothing), for a lesser amount of money to be charged to the church, who should have known, who in much of the testimony showed that they did know, about the actions of the youth minister. Too many of the men on the jury seemed to me to be searching for a way to make it all just go away; after all, she let it happen. She let it happen. She was thirteen. He was mid-twenties.
The second decision we were charged to make was the monetary amount that was to be rewarded to the young woman. Here attorneys were asking for 20 million dollars. The foreman of our jury thought that was an absurd amount of money, finally reluctantly acquiescing to 10 million dollars, eight of which the former youth minister would never pay. The other two million being the responsibility of the church.
I remember walking to the bus which would take me to where my car was parked so that I could drive home back to my family with our small children, and then back to my classroom the next day with my wildly wonderful thirteen year old students, thinking that we had all failed her somehow. That justice was bought off cheaply. That we were all responsible for what happened to her. The trial sat in my mind darkly for the rest of the thirty years I worked in education.
