Be The Change
Paper Plane
Bad news blares from every stamen, every mouth, every passing car and leaf blower. I am coated in dust. It has been too long since I left this spot. How do trees do it? Do they too grow stiff and restless
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Be The Change
Of War and War and War
“When you attack us, you will see our faces. Not our backs, but our faces.”
- President Volodymyr Zelensky
Beneath
a Bougainvillea-laced trellis
I read of war and war and war
when I am startled by a sound
deep and insistent
like an omen or a warning.
But looking up
all I spy
is a hummingbird
drinking nectar.
Slowly
I unclench my fist
and give up the Molotov cocktail
I had begun to conjure there.
What a shame to read
Be The Change
Ukraine
long before the stamps commemorating peace, before factories resumed churning out grenades, some made off with blueprints for conquest, taped them to the walls of their dreams
poetry
The Business of Life and Death
Suppose I grant you the premise of your question. Should I gather up my limbs at once and build something immortal with them? What could I construct to outlast the drowsy calm of this moment?
Be The Change
Elephant
Out of the blue our three-year-old declares he doesn’t like the elephant. For days he repeats—unbidden, as if recalling a nightmare—that he doesn’t like the elephant.
Be The Change
The Raison D’Etre of a Bad Habit
Some talk during movies. Others crack their knuckles, drink to excess, buy things they don’t need, make mountains out of molehills.
Be The Change
The Spirit of Christmas
It's all too much, the floor strewn with gifts we couldn't possibly deserve. But our son is happy, going from toy to toy, and so are we, smiling along with him as he plays with the train, the trucks, the scooter.
Be The Change
After Thanksgiving
So much death and pain today: slaughtered fowls, reminders of genocide and oppression, celebration of abundance denied to billions. Cousin, did you know 400,000 Ethiopians are suffering famine?
Be The Change
The Fog of Anger
At what time the fog took over, I do not know: I was, if not sleeping, attempting to, tossing and turning like a Heron's wing, lost in fog.
Be The Change
After ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’
Love, like light, has no mass, is information. Not that which is found in books, newspapers, sacred texts: Suns laugh at our quest for knowledge. Imagine a poem with no beginning or end, no author or reader, words or meaning—
poetry
What Weighs on Us
What momentary peace in the yard!--The peach
tree straining under the weight of its fruit,
the sound of water giving itself to gravity.
I stir my coffee and breathe. A solitary ant
scampers about my foot; in no mood for murder
or pain, I leave it be. The breeze pries loose
a Bougainvillea leaf from its vine. I partake
in the the sadness of plants, the anguish of
insects: hungry, thirsty, lost, seeking sun
or shade, the last crumb
Be The Change
The Planet Jeff Bezos Returned To
Jeff Bezos did not leave the planet any better than he found it, though he is rich enough to leave it and return, alive. As I watch the skies, greedy mosquitos stalk me like a herd of tiny buffalo.