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Knowing
She
wants to know
if I could be an animal
which would I
choose.
Part of me wants to answer panther
sleek, black,
catlike, eyes
glowing in the night,
but never coyote,
crawling out
of the hills in search of rabbits
darting
through the sage,
never the trickster.
I am an animal, I
remind her,
we all are, just a bit smarter than most.
She
laughs and says
I really wanted to be a god
since I had the
image part down.
I say I’d thought of that
but as a
man animal
I get two days off a week
and God, according to
Genesis
got only one, and
he probably spent it
watching
football in New Orleans
She says she would rather be
a
dragon or a fox, since Shinto gods
have far less work to
do
and generally sit around
being simply venerated.
I
close my book, listen
to the rain pelting the Windows
watch
the bolt
across the face of the clouds
and listen for the
peel of thunder --
Thor is not happy again.
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Midstream
A
young man sits
on a large flat rock
jutting out into a
river.
He slowly tells the river
the story of his
life,
places he has been.
Each bit of water flowing
by
hears a small piece
of his story, none hear
whole
thoughts, for perhaps
he has told none.
Some time later I
sit
on the flat rock
and stare into the roiling water.
I
listen for its story
but each drop of water
tells bits of
its life,
or maybe it is
the lives of others
who stood
along its banks
upstream and let their lives
trickle into
its flow.
A fish swim slowly by,
it's silvered
scales
flashing gold
in the late afternoon sun.
It
pauses near the rock,
purses its mouth
and swims off
downstream,
but we both understand
it is only the
ocean
that hears us fully.
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What
Do You Say
What
do you say
to those who turn their backs
on those broken in
battle,
or broken at the sight of battle,
who were left to
clean up the collateral damage,
or who were collateral
damage,
were pierced by IED’s,
or shaped
charges,
inadequate armor,
or no armor at all,
were left
in moldy rooms,
were dropped on the street,
who don’t
want to go back again, and still again,
to see with their eyes
closed,
who cannot find shelter in a maelstrom of
thoughts,
who did what was asked
and wish they hadn’t,
who
asked for leaders and found only followers,
who asked why and
were told because,
who never came back,
who were left here.
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