They spent the day after the
three-day visit in
hard drug cold withdrawal.

Although they took no drugs,
it must have been what
withdrawal from drugs was like.

On the couch and on the bed
they slept fitfully,
got up and went back to bed.

He felt like a jar of honey
that had crystalized, flipped
upside down on its cap and
just waited for a drop or two
of un-crystalized honey to
drop along the side of the
bottle slowly down, down,
down to the cap to then be
flipped back over, the cap
opened quickly and the drop
or two scooped out with an
index finger but the finger
wasn’t quick enough and the
drop or two fell back onto
the crystalized honey on the
bottom of the bottle, the one
or two drops destined to be
crystalized, too, into one
clump of crystalized honey.
He was that tired after the
company left.

“A Roman officer came up to ask if (Jesus) would do something for a paralyzed servant back home, and Jesus said he’d go have a look at him. When the officer said he hated to take that much of his time and asked if he couldn’t just do something from right there where they were standing, Jesus was so impressed by the way the man trusted him that he told him he’d see to it that what he trusted would happen would happen indeed, and when the officer got home, he found his servant up and around again.”
— Frederick Buechner

The poet asked a friend
if he would be so kind
as to write a review of

the poet’s latest book.
He didn’t want to im-
pose on the friend, but

the book meant a lot
to him and the poet
trusted and respected

his friend. The friend
said sure and there
occurred an affirmation

of the book and an
affirmation of the poet
because the book was

an extension of the poet
and a distinct warming
of the heart of the poet

for the friend who went
out of the way to enliven
the spirit of another.

And Jesus smiled.

He likes to think of him-
    self as rebellious, ironic, 
iconoclastic, idiosyncratic, 
    unpredictable, a life lived 
outside the box, on the edge,
    sometimes over the proverb-
ial top, yes, even out of bounds,
    but it was his turn 
to get up with the dog, 
    clean the dishes soaking in 
the sink, make the coffee, 
    first grinding the medium 
roast, fair-trade, organic 
beans kept in the freezer 
    for freshness then combining 
    those with chocolate fudge 
flavored coffee previously 
    ground but also direct from 
the freezer, make the two
    egg omelet which always 
tastes the same regard-
    less of the previous even-
ing’s left-overs because 
    he always smothers it with 
fresh tomatoes from the 
    farmer’s market, marinara 
sauce and salsa -- all 
    organic, of course.
Did you see them --
    two unindented lines to-
gether and two indented 
    lines together? Yes, a rebel.

Not a devil, a magician instead –
not exactly Merlin who is now dead,
but a wizardly magician surely he be,
a recrudescence for all to see
and worship as the one to deliver
and make all lesser beings shiver.
There is strength in that hair
as Delilah from Sampson did snare.
He tells it like it is they say
but he only repeats what they nay-say.
It is his trick as he points
and swirls his small index finger
hoping the mesmerized crowd will linger
and then will rise up in great rage
and break out of civilization’s cage.
It is the threnody that morality is a veneer,
but from such weak wizards steer clear.
They will promise to fix it all
but it forebodes a reenactment of the fall.
Rather, look to none other than the lamb,
the one who fulfills the eternal plan
to lift all creatures from the hellish condition
and celebrate the rainbow coalition:
“Jesus loves the little children
all the children of the world,
red and yellow, black, brown and white,
they are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

White is the new bad
they tell me.
We now know that white
in many forms saps us
of who we were created to be —
white flour, white sugar,
white potatoes and by far
the biggest, baddest sapper
of who we need to be —
white privilege that would be,
we only need to see
and so flee
from that which depletes
the body, mind and spirit
of all we are intended to be.
A little goes a long way
they say.
Some say you must stay away,
but others say a little bit
of whiteness may be a-okay —
flour, sugar, and potatoes and
even plain old salt
but all white privilege must be
rejected and from it abstained
because it is at fault
of weakening the body
and depleting nutrients of
the whole human race
and filling it with fear
and hate unchained
and thus the human race
remains horribly stained.
So, dieters, stand tall
declaring once and for all
that white privilege is
a thing of the past
and get on board the
rainbow gravy train
‘cause it is movin’ down
the healthy, wholesome,
happy track of life
ever so fast.

She signs her name in cursive
at the base of her sculpture —
hide and seek.

“Who did this marvelous piece?”
they ask and then they say,
“She seems so meek.”

They seek the artist’s name;
she hides in their midst
proffering a sneak peek.

The routine — some see it
as drudgery and perhaps
sometimes it is but can it
be that all the time, can it?

Even in prison, where I have
never been, which disqualifies
me out of hand, but still per-
haps just a nanosecond of peace

in a moment of the drudgerous
day somewhere along the way
— an epiphany of sorts? I
hear that monks claim rhythm

in what others would see only
as drudgery — up at 2 a.m.
for a litany of prayer and
then work in the field and

food in silence they ate and
to bed by eight. I am dis-
qualified from commenting
on such things, but I know

the rhythm of life in the
midst of the hectic, hustle,
bustle and strife. I know a
time out for a jog in the

woods. I know breathing
deeply of the goodness of
nature while the sweat
drops into my eyes and

glides down to and past
my thighs; I know exhaustion
and exhilaration all at once
while shafts of light shower

me with warmth and goodness
and life. Some see that as
sheer drudgery while it is
all rhythm to me. I can act-

ually feel it right here,
right now, sitting in this —
my writing sanctuary. If you
will excuse me, to the trails

I now must flee to bathe further
in rhythms of eternity, but
first I have to do the dishes.
Oh, yes, there is still drudgery.

They lift kayaks on the car
in hopes of paddling near and far.
They toss kayaks in the lake,
hop in and paddle necks to break
speed and then slow and settle in
to a rhythm feathering the paddle’s fin,
turning on a dime, gliding in the shallows
among the cattails looking for fish shadows.
They cycle on the roads and jog on the trails
and kayak with the boats that hoist the sails,
but unlike those vessels with big keels
they spirit through shallows fish to reveal.
At the end of each jog, cycle and paddle,
they breathe deeply of adventure’s call
to break away and skedaddle.