Remember the Running Giraffe

Remember the running giraffe you saw and knew
that God was real? Remember
its rocking stride, that catenary neck
whose arc flexed gracefully
with each silent step? Remember
the impossible sunlight and
the endless grass relieved by thorny trees
before commanding cloud and distant
darkened curtains of the blessing rain?

To that waking day when you were born
my thoughts are tied; now, when shelter takes priority
and blows repeat, and even dying seems distinct,
I yearn to call, and in your hearing ear
repeat this question:
Do you remember your African God,
and have you lately asked His aid?
Even here in cages you may find,
in long-lashed eyes above,
that He remembers you.

May 26 2010

We Find Ourselves Here

We find ourselves here in the middle course,
and sometimes we would ask no more
than to be given to the margin
where a clear and certain boundary sets
a limit on the world.
But these banks are passed by active lives;
they are sticking points, used and useful
just for rest and to contain and shape
the roiling flow at either side.
Push off joyfully or with regret:
Our path must be to complicate,
accept the ceaseless milling of the stream:
not birth, not death; not great, not small;
nor good, nor bad, nor black, nor white--
living happens only in between.

May 19 2010

I Found Your Wishes

I found your wishes on the floor:
notes to hope, which we were never meant to see.
I read them, I admit,
your fears and fleeting aspirations,
with accepted guilt, as parents do.
But though you let them fall, I knew
they still were secret,
so put them back where they belong,
beneath your dreaming pillow;
and this I'll tuck beneath my own,
that you, my dearest wish,
will likewise stay
till you come true.

May 19 2010

A First Communion Day

Rain that falls on a First Communion day
reminds us of their christening.
These puddles that we splash through
on our way to get the cake
might be baptismal fonts
for other kinds of children.
The trees like verdant sponges overhang
the street, dark with promise
and heavy with this water,
ready to bless our unsuspecting SUVs
if a godly wind so moves them;
and now we remember the waking dawn,
how the rain knocked on our windows and
thunder like a voice reminded us
that it was time to rise.

May 8 2010

I'll Show You the End Of the Ocean

I'll show you the end of the ocean, you said,
but not to me. I'm too old to see
where the waves come from; too old to willingly
suspend my disbelief,
crawl under the blanket archway
of your realm and sail
across the wooden sea on hands and knees
grown painful with my weight and age,
too busy ironing
the wrinkles out of life for you,
too near the end to take the time grown precious
from my busy days whose minutes shrink
proportionately to the sum of years
whose corridor rings with echoes that will keep
my ears from hearing what you offer
to your sister, or
so you possibly may think.

May 4 2010