0 commentsRenewal
It was raining sunlight when I rose,
Cascades of warmth densely falling
Like poetry written in prose,
And my heart, through stops and starts,
Galloped ever closer to repose.
December 2, 2009 12:00 PM
0 commentsMyth
“The only thing truer than Truth is the story.”—Jewish Proverb
Scrawled upon the tattered pages
And etched into the voices
Of shamans, poets, warriors—the masses,
A thousand stories telling the human story
Turn men into gods and gods into men.
Long before I heard the tale, I saw
The actors brandishing swords, hurling
Their tears to mingle with the seasons,
And knew that though a hand belongs to a man,
Its gestures belong to history.
And so I beckoned the storytellers,
Reached out to the depths of awareness
Where metaphors and hopes were born,
In search of the hopes and the metaphors
That would give meaning to the days.
At night the actors were dressed
In the wild extremes of emotion, and I danced
Cheek to cheek with bliss, despair, unyielding love,
Until sleep bled into wakefulness
And nothing seemed real.
In the crucible of the human psyche
Two plots are forged: one reveals
The desire to construct cities, institutions,
The other explains why mortals toil
To make a lasting impression on the earth.
Lifting a pen, the poet’s ink mingles with the blood
Of the living, the dead and the divine,
Yet naked and alone, he must admit that
Though all people are poets, all poets gods,
No image compares to the beauty of sunlight and stars.
Monday, October 12, 2009
0 commentsThe Poetry of the Morning
The morning repeats itself, its poetry
Heard where feet first touch the floor
Upon which the soldiers of old
March in lockstep, fighting in vain
Against a newer yet ageless force.
The morning reveals itself, its long
Limbs stretching namelessly
Across the face of solitude,
While through a thousand windows
Sunlight makes mist of dreams and dreamers.
The morning teases itself,
Its abdomen pressing against
The smooth back of darkness,
An embrace replete with the hope and fear
Of another day.
Yet the morning surprises itself, too,
Its stark clarity sometimes
Sculpting a lover of longing,
An action of lofty words,
A poem of an idea.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
0 commentsDe camino a la Alhambra
De camino a la Alhambra el sueño se cayó
En manos de la realidad,
Y como no anticipaba la invasión
Me quedé destrozado, buscando
Las esquirlas de un amor
Que había explicado el caos del mundo.
De camino a la Alhambra una promesa
Se sometió a la distancia que la transmitía,
Y yo, desesperado, con una fe incorruptible,
Me puse a cantar como un imán
Que de pronto descubre que los creyentes ya no creen;
Mis palabras cayeron sobre una muralla que desconocía.
De camino a la Alhambra una brisa
Se llevó al pasado una historia
Que había conquistado el tiempo,
Que había establecido un reino
De caricias, de miradas penetrantes,
De la perfección hecha alcanzable.
De camino a la Alhambra mi vida
Cambió para siempre, y aunque
El dolor no me haya vencido,
Las heridas no permiten que me olvide
De la luna que iluminó mi corazón
Aquella noche antigua que pasamos en la Alhambra.
1 commentsInspiration and Action
Late on a winter morning, when through my window
Deceptive sunlight belies the frigid cold,
I hear a retinue of birdsong on whose shoulders
The feathered, colorful, migratory reach
Of responsibility brushes the bristles of thought.
I pause, as though suspended like the steel cables
Of a bridge that crosses a body of gleaming longevity.
The horizon, filled with bare branches, bare sky,
Barely covers the expanse of hibernated longing,
And my hands reach back into summer
To touch the flora and fauna that inspire seasons.
More sunlight, more song leeks into my room
And mixes with the filth I’ve neglected to clean.
A rush of cold air makes me dizzy with existence,
The erotic interplay of wakefulness and awareness.
As I step out into the world my shoes mingle with snow,
And my breath audaciously carries itself skyward.
In dilated, cerebral veins, a kite of sugar
Gyrates in the wind of synapses and electrochemicals.
A foreign force presents a passport, pleading permission
To enter the guarded gates of mystical musings.
Reticent, yet proud to have shirked my duty in favor
Of foraging the forests of history for vials of vitality,
I open the door and get to work.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
10:00 AM
Click here to download a PDF of my complete thesis. Questions and comments are much appreciated!
My masters thesis in Environmental Studies at Brown University looks at how microfinance--the provision of small…
Micro-credit has undoubtedly been a runaway success in developing countries as a tool of both poverty alleviation and economic development. To date, some 100 million people have been reached by micro-loans, and Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank…
It is late and my mind should be drifting through the colorful abyss of deep sleep, yet instead i find that tonight sleep will not come. I am like a hungry flower who dreams of bees so ardently that all…