The Peach Orchard

Sometimes this joy 
is too much to hold.
It's like the peach trees  
in my grandmother's orchard
the summer I was 8. How they
let go that fullness.
How I ate. How I was filled. 

I'm the orchard tonight.
Someone wander by.

Good Things, Bad Things

Sometimes a good thing 
goes bad and sometimes 
a good-thing-gone-bad 
goes good and sometimes 
a good-thing-gone-bad-gone-good 
goes bad again. Of course, 
you are human, so you spin. 
You spin so fast, in fact, 
you may at times spin out into space.
And then you're kinda screwed,
or maybe you're unscrewed. Who knows?
Who knows where you'll come down 
or if you'll come down or ultimately, 
what it even is to come down.
You spin spin spin, then 
you slow slow slow till 
you're just an astronaut adrift,
floating way out there 
with nothing left to hold.
Nothing. Nothing. No thing.
No good thing gone bad.
No good. No bad. Just the 
same old now there ever was,
which now you see.

How Do We Know We are Good If No One Told Us We Were Loved?

We collapse into ourselves,
yet all the world would save us. 
Thunderstorms rip the sky
and cliffsides tumble free. 
Roots buckle roads. Cocoons burst.
Seedcoats dehisce and buds unclench. 
Listen, says the world, to live 
is to crack open.

Why Drinking a Latte is a Spiritual Act

Inside the cup 
is your latte.
Outside the cup 
is the universe.
Drink slowly. Savor. 
When you finish,
you refill your cup
from eternity.
So rich is the grind
of all being,
the barista makes
a mandala in the foam.

A Prayer for the Tentative

They name God the source 
of light, of love, 
of all that rose before
and will come after.
They, who would reduce 
all mystery to a syllable.

Absent the absolute,
may you, the tentative,
find sustenance in glimpses,
in things less defined, 
in earthly in-betweens.
The holy, in other words.

Silverdale Costco

In my apocalyptic fantasy,
we peel out of your driveway
and speed north from Bainbridge 
on the 305. We slalom the undead 
along the Agate Passage bridge.
Speed through the red light
in front of the Clearwater Casino.
Wonder if the zombies are playing 
blackjack tonight. Blink-blink past
Poulsbo. Then south on Highway 3.
We fly down the Kitsap Peninsula, 
strewn now with burned-out wrecks 
that never had a chance. Not us! 
Not today, baby! Love can make 
a kingdom out of any lifeless place, 
even the Costco in Silverdale. 
We skid into the parking lot and sprint 
for the entrance, zombies on our ass. 
In my fantasy, we slam the door in time,
securing bounty in a world of rot.

Ode to 'Ode to Joy'

My 10-year-old son is practicing 
"Ode to Joy" and the notes march 
orderly enough at first, but then 
detach and drift to the dark corners 
of my apartment. I'm half-listening,
thinking about someone who's left me.
It's work, this life. Against detachment.
I get up, sweep the notes into a dust pan, 
and pour them back into his clarinet. 
My son smiles. "I may have to fake it 
at the Christmas pageant tomorrow." 
Sometimes you do. I tap his chest 
and tell him not to worry, I tell him
that the song is there inside.

I don't know anything about music, 
but I do have an ear for happiness. 
I know it runs like an electric wire 
down through time. I know it hums in us, 
even when we cannot hear it, even when 
we are its deaf conductors.