Thin, green shoots popped
up without anyone noticing.
They are lovely in contrast

with the brown pine needles.
Yesterday, they weren’t there
and today they are all over

the place. They are like the
Chocolate Lab. He is on a
schedule. He pops up at

seven-fifteen in the morn-
ing, as he did this morning,
whether he is in Phoenix or

Park Township, MI. Three
hours difference makes no
difference to him. It does to

us. It has to do with the
the sun’s popping up. The
Jonquils are on a schedule,

a perennial one. At just
the right time each year
they are beckoned by the

sun and they rise, too.
I walk around the shoots
as I follow the dog. The

Chocolate Lab, who pop-
ped up at seven-fifteen and
shook his body making

sufficient noise to wake the
dead just walks all over those
Jonquils on his way to do

his business. Afterward, he
stomps all over them again
in a hurry to get to the back

door and then the kitchen
to get his breakfast. Every-
one and everything are on

a schedule and it’s all con-
nected to the sun popping
up. It’s time for me to make

a pot of coffee, smell the
wonderful aroma of the
percolating beans I ground

yesterday, watch the sun as
it rises over the sand dune.
Soon the oak trees on the

dune will bud and every-
one will say, “Oh, look.
The trees are budding,” as

if it were happening for
the first time, kind of like
being pleasantly surprised

by the Jonquils, but it all
has to do with the sun pop-
ping up every morning

like dumb robins in spring
heat colliding with their
reflections in our windows,

as I sit sipping coffee.

I, a white male, just read
a poem by a black female.
One line read, “Remember
what the world is like for
white people…” She’s looking
in and I’m looking out from
within and the windows are
glass blocks. She probably
re-members a lot better
than I and even though
she is “black within,” she
certainly re-members what
the world is like for black
people in a way whites never
could. Whites are so stupid-
ly unreflective almost to
the point of being uncon-
scious. Everybody else knows
us better than we know any-
thing about them or ourselves.
They re-member and we dis-
member. At least I know that.
Oh, and she’s a female, to
boot. That must make her a
gazillion times more aware
than white males, who walk
around nearly comatose.

Tiger can’t get over the infidelity and shame
and the need for forgiveness and
you could argue it has ruined his game.

A score more athletes’ stats were built
on injections, pills and a total lack of guilt.

The jig is up for some high jinks jocks
who give their wives and girlfriends hard knocks.

And in religion, the T.V. star named Schuller
turned out to be an Elmer Gantry-like fooler.

And politicians? They run for office under indict-
ment and open public rebellion they sometimes incite.

So, where are today’s heroes for us?
Maybe we better stick with good, old Jesus.

What does it matter whether literal or metaphor,
when self-sacrifice, humility, justice and compassion
are the values’ core?

Forget the athlete, politician and preacher.
Keep focused on the Heavenly teacher —

the rabbi who taught in parables the true treasure to find
and healed the sick and gave sight to the blind.

So, forget “selfies,” our narcissistic bend
and churches with silly names like “Trendmaker.”
Simply being with the suffering is the spiritual mend

to give a cure to our soul-sick society
and that’s not some quaint, anachronistic piety.

That’s a prescription for eternity.

Lilly Ledbetter,
with the wonderful Southern drawl,
loves fighting for equal pay.
She’s not a conservative
nor liberal; she just wants
equality in pay
this and every day
for women. “Do not stall
this incredibly
important law,”
states Lilly Ledbetter,
with
that distinctive
Southern drawl.
Let’s keep fighting,
you Southern, Eastern,
Western, Northern
women, y’all.

A rich, Republican enchilada, accompanied
by beans and rice and Ayn Rand,
walks into a bar and offers
everyone a glad hand.
The bartender says, “This enchilada is one
taco short of a combination plate.”
The Republicans are going for the Hispanic
vote this time even though they’re late,
because
they love Latinos e Latinas so much and
only want the very best that votes
will buy
before
deportation bye-bye.
Meanwhile the street tacos are registering
voters for the Democrats who always
promise a lot and deliver one
enchilada short of a combination plate, too.
But, Jesus (Hay-sus), Maria and Jesus (Geez-us),
who is neither Republican nor Democrat,
make a great combination plate
without all the political beans and
rice and
mucho gaseous freight.
Mucho gusto.

He wanted to write something
taut, concise, brief,
but then he, being old, repeated
himself and wrote it again
and it became a tautology,
the practice of briefly written
things repeated
in different words in the
same phrase.
Desiring so, he wanted to write something
taut, tight, concise, brief,
but then he, being old, repeated
himself again and again and wrote it again
and it became a tautology,
the practice of briefly written
things repeated
in some different words in
the very same phrase.
May I please get out of here?
May I please get out of here now?
Sure.
Surely.
Goodbye.
Goodbye then.
Am I repeating myself?
Am I repeating and saying the
same thing in a few different
words again?
Does this have something to
do with age?
Does this thing here have
to do with, is related to
age, getting older,
growing gray?
What do you say?
I wrote this myself.
Well, why didn’t I
say so in the beginning
when I first started
writing that all by
myself without any
help from anyone
else, meaning others?
Taut but not tight
is becoming every which
way but mostly loose
and not taut or tight
at all.
I could have said
that I wanted to
write something short
and do it, but it’s
spring and words
are like rabbits.

On lonely roads in Missouri
they drove slowly past redbuds
and dogwoods and blue flox.

This after the one-day-only
flowering cacti in the Arizona
spring. When they turned north

leaving Indiana behind, they
saw that the flowers had yet to
bloom. They are happy to wait.

Five, six, seven calls, I lose count
listening to an automated, computer
generated, monotone, female voice over
and over and over in order to get to a
human and this after two thousand miles
on the road and two calls days ago to
make sure the cable company turned on
the cable so we could watch the tail
end of day three at the Masters before
falling asleep in the chairs. I’m argu-
ing with a computer generated voice,
which says over and over, “I’m sorry,
I didn’t quite get that. Let’s try this
again.” and then, the heaven sent words,
“Please wait on the line for a represent-
ative.” Finally. Then sweet, sincere boys
and girls blame each other just like in
the garden: tech says billing got it wrong;
billing says tech doesn’t understand what
is going on, but only in this one particular
instance, just this one time which never,
ever happened before. My situation is so
unique. My voice rises. I’m not following
Jesus; I don’t love Jesus anymore; I’m
following my heroes Lenin, Stalin, Idi
Amin and the Gestapo and yell into the
phone to prove it. We talk over each
other. I’m the weasely, little guy who
stands over Cool Hand Luke and says in
a lousy, Texas drawl, “What we have
here is a failure to communicate.” I
shout it at the kids with those ob-
noxiously, unflappable, angelic voices
who say all the right things without mean-
ing any of them and who just want to shoot
the weasel with the silly, southern drawl
but who continue to say ad nauseam, “I
understand; no problem; yes, perfect, of
course; this will only take a minute; we
appreciate your business; is it all right
to put you on hold for a few minutes while
I talk with my supervisor? I think this
should fix the problem.” Finally, after
infinity on the phone, one simple little
reboot boots up Phil Mickelson making a
birdie putt on sixteen. I have found Jesus
again and walk the sawdust trail. I
repent and give the last sweet-voiced,
billing person five on a scale of one
to five to question after question
after question, over and over and over
in the post phone call survey that comes
close to umpteen verses of “Just As I Am”
as penance for having idolized and imitated
Attila the Hun just a few minutes ago.

cruisin’ through the dust,
bouncin’ off the wild,
west wind,
slicin’ through west
texas,
the far west okie
panhandle,
passin’ the cattle corrals
of kansas, blue flox hills
east of wichita,
walnut trees, small
lakes, creeks with water,
the creamy missouri
running through it all
not to
mention the mighty mississippi
takin’ minnesota
mud to the gulf,
fields waiting for corn,
corn, corn, corn,
big, green
john deere all over
the back roads and
some of the main
roads, no explanation
needed,
old abe’s well worn
nose, gov’s in the
hooscow,
black soil, tornadoes
roaring through one
day in advance, lives
changed forever while
the road runs on,
snowy rain
blowin’ in the wind
over the
big lake, sand
whippin’ up along
the shore
peltin’
cars
goin’ north,
spring in the air
in the fair
northern midwest —
goin’ home,
goin’ home,
Lord, we’re
goin home, sweet home.

having had a wonderful winter in the wild
and wooly west they wanted to fly out of
phoenix like the bird rising, but they had
to grit their teeth, clinch their jaws and
crawl out of town like a turkey in traffic
(which they actually saw later in Santa Rosa)
during rush hour with about five hundred
miles to go before they slept. finally, they
glided up 87 perching in payson, stopping
for a pit-stop at mcdonald’s and noticing
a lot of really, old people limping to and
from their cars — snow-headed snow-birds,
slow, low flying cranes heading home, clogg-
ing lanes, and making drivers pray passionate-
ly for passing zones. locals bowed in gratitude.
the mountain air cleared the ashes like ozone
from valley lungs. they moved so slow through
show low behind minnesota and south dakota
they thought they might drift back down into
the soon to-be furnace below but hit their
stride on 60 through new mexico. the road
leveled, the traffic thinned like an anorexic
valley girl and they drove east peacefully on
their own lonesome road as the sun set serenely
on their wings — nirvana, valhalla, a heavenly
airborne load.