Blood Red Moon

The moon turned blood red last night—
Once in thirty years—
That’s our blood up there
Reflected in these tears
The galaxy is starlit
But not our troubled home
We are falling like a dynasty
May we rebuild like Rome
Every angel in the system
Looks askance or looks away
This is the war we wage within
This is the world we know today
Venus holds a flower
Mars would surely strike it down
There’s a fever in the romance
There’s a fire in this town
God in all his glory
Holds the cities in his sway
The moon is bleeding red
The blood is seeping into day

Reflections from Land's End

I looked into the water
Saw myself a younger man
Holding clouds and rain and thunder
In the hollows of his hands

And off on the horizon
As the sky began to dim
Was a shadow slowly growing
Until it came to live within

The power that I shouldered
Thinking I could ride the sky
Was a falling star at daybreak
Was a comet bound to die

And now the water rises
And it rises to my head
But I understand the darkness
And the sacrifice instead

Questions

With the little ones, we
Do our best not to discuss
Where the old, old, old, old, old people go
When we get to see them again
Where the hamburger and tuna come from
What fishing feels like for the fish
Where all the garbage gets to go
Why the men in the news dress in green with guns
That we do not allow them to carry
But these questions I do carry
They used to gnaw at me
Forty years in the desert
Now burning

Still Life Falling

He walks his child across ice to school
Snow starts falling, silent wall
Sheltering, dividing, protecting her
Blanket made of flakes
Dazzling light in all that white
The children will stay inside today
So warm against the sea,
Staring out at the white, white sea
He remembers how it used to be….
Before the blanket was torn asunder
And he became one with cold….
Faces splayed out in the sea, stories,
Distant lands, shapes of
Eskimos and dinosaurs
Flags of many nations
Hello in Japanese
The hounds of winter call him out
Bits of snow falling still on balding pate
White conspiring angels, all

Chicken

Silence gives birth to silence
One shadow under God indivisible
With many mouths, and no one speaking
Many tongues twisted and curled
The cosmic egg is delivered, cracked
Someone hears the tree falling (it made a sound)
In the soulless forest and screams to all the neighboring pines
Then claps with one hand faster than light
The child stares down at his dinner plate and asks,
“What is chicken made out of?”

Thankful

It’s Thanksgiving Eve, a good time to reflect. Things I am thankful for:

*A decent job--I might not be rich, but it keeps food on the table

*The ability to go see a doctor--it might cost too much, but there are millions of people in the world who can’t go at all

*A healthy mind and body--alright, not like they were when I was 25, but hanging in there

*Religious freedom--in a world where countless millions are persecuted for what they believe

*A house--when many good people are being forced out of them

*Supermarkets, department stores, and credit cards--considering that so many people in the world don’t have these conveniences

*A loving family--people to come home to every day and night.

I Can Hold You

Child, I trace your features
As if I never knew a nose
Your eyes are lit like stars
That lead me through an open door

But I can hold you no more
Than I can hold the rain
Watch it trickle through my fingers
Watch it settle on the floor

Child, your hair of feathers
Beckons me to fly away
I would soar above this misery
Leave the ashes where I stay

But I can hold you no more
Than I can hold the sea
Watch it fall into the void and
Watch it wash all over me

Child, your feet are fragile
And your arms confused with wings
But I am far too fettered
To feel weightless like these things

I can hold you no more
Than I can hold the sky
Watch it empty out the universe
Watch it hold me until I

Can hold you no more