Obscurely yet surely backyard birdssimple & further from corruption withthe wonder of wings call us to praise A sparrow caught & fluttering in themechanism of

This morning, two scrub jays in a scrub oaklook out over the canyon. The oak is dead,enlivened only by gray-green lichencoating the remnants of its

Like all of us who carry hidden pain,he soberly performed his task that day.When his turn came to sacrifice and prayhe did not celebrate, did

An anxious mind is paralyzed by choice.The angel doesn’t offer choice, but birth —springing the snare of virtue versus vice. Her eyes fixed on her

How can we stomp it out?all the rude crudesmashed glass & heartachethe grabbing stabbingfussing & fumingSledgehammers just breakfingers Unset boneswon’t heal straight Is it worthall

did it hurtwhen the tongues offire landed on theirheadsdid itburnsinge ignite something in theirtonguesso they talked all crazy and the sound of the windroaring like

After Matthew 26:52 Blood streaks splatter across moonbeamslike a pearl-string snatched from a virgin’s neck:the ear of a guard, hacked off, falling down to dustto

Pride be not deathfor as I’vestretched to reach out from thesebrambles to cut away the vinesabout my ankles to step out on thispromontory you swell

After Marc Chagall’s “Sarah and Abimelech” What kind of fool flings his wife to another manas if tossing a meaty shank to a drooling wolf,thinking

I play the part of an earthboundstone   you   the part of the moon in this silent   ceaseless   standoffAs a rock   an oversized pebble I’m kicked along some

The fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure. — Isaiah 33:6 Beyond eager to bear witness to the miracle of compounding, I have deposited,Lord, my

Harlem Cultural Festival, 1969 As though Eve herself,in all her intricate glory,electrified once again the rib, as though her twin lungs, rumblingwith divine breath,let loose,