Come what may, evil
sticks like glue to every-
one, including me and

you. It just won’t go
away. Even if one is
innocent, evil pursues

throughout the day — some-
thing sticky on the hand.
One shakes and shakes but

it won’t go away. Conseq-
uences latch on, too. Lady
Macbeth tried to wash the

blood of Duncan away. She
screamed “Out damn spot,”
but it remained indelible,

regardless of what others
might say. Evil sticks
when you think it has gone

away; it pursues in ven-
geance to one’s dying day
and the consequence of

evil sticks like glue in
guilt, too. What to do? His
father once told him to

declare his innocence, if
true, through attack after
attack after attack and

come what may, he would
still have his integrity.
Come what may, come what

may, come what may, evil
can’t take one’s integrity
away.

We met along the trail.
I was walking the chocolate lab.
He was heading out for a jog.
Without the dog, we would have
said hi and that would have been that.
He stopped to pet the dog.
“I’ve got two brown labs at home.”
“This guy is our fourth.”
“He’s beautiful.”
“You can’t do better than sweet chocolate.”
“Have a great jog.”
“Thanks. It was nice meeting you.
Bye you beautiful boy.”
And so it goes — a variation on a theme.
In the cause of world peace, everyone should
adopt a chocolate lab and go for a walk.

Everyday we hear vulgarities
And blasphemies uttered
In language most coarse.

People feel free to be
Politically incorrect
With no apparent remorse.

Rudeness and incivility
Prevail all day, everyday,
Of course.

Drivers give no room to
Other drivers making roads
A demolition derby course.

Horns blast and shouts
Can be heard referring
To the large ass of a horse.

The middle finger, the mocking
Sign of peace, is thrust
With great force.

Reds shout at Blues;
Blues shout back
Until everyone is hoarse.

And the biggest casualties
Are ever and always
The poor and minorities
Who get no justice
In due (or old or new)
Course.

In a country grown
So fearful and hateful,
The least (the poor and
The minorities), as Jesus put it,
Are his brothers and sisters,
Of course.

Jesus calls all American
Christians to repentance
And great remorse

And the will to do justice,
Love mercy, walk humbly and
Get the hell off our
Death bearing high,
Pale horse,

Hearing Jesus say, “Fear not,”
And Julian of Norwich pray,
“All shall be well; all
Manner of things shall
Be well” in eternity
Which is right now,
Right now, right now,
Of course.

In the church courtyard
after the march and protest,
we sat around a table. I
listened to the biracial,
young man speak about
his religiously and polit-
ically conservative
mother in Memphis. I
asked the young man
if his mother were black.
“Oh, no, she is white.
She had an affair with
my father when they
were very young. He
was from the wrong side
of town. They never
married and I only met
him once.” After that
he continued to tell
stories about Memphis
but I lost the gist of
his words. I found my-
self looking at his
rich, bronzed skin
and then at my reddish
white arms with blue
veins and blotchy,
age spots here and there.
I just sat there staring
at his face, remember-
ing to blink my eyes
periodically so he
would think I was
listening, but I wasn’t;
I was mesmerized by
the glistening beauty
of his skin.

They keep finding ways
To hire other gays
To tend bar,
To park the car,
To bus the dishes,
To quietly call each other “bitches,”
To wait on tables,
To carry ladies’ sables.
There is eye candy
To be had — all randy.
Take your pick
To pick up a chop stick –
There is the stocky stevedore.
The surfer dude holds the door.
There is the black model so pretty.
There is the tutti-frutti cutie.
This is how they joke with each other.
They are all brothers by different mothers.
They stand by, with and for.
They call themselves The Brothers Four.
They aren’t looking for a fight
To defend their right
To be who they are.
They’ll be pushed only so far.
They will defend their right
To have a legal fight
To be who they are –
They call themselves The Brothers Four.
They don’t live in closets anymore.
This is stopping off space
To a bigger, better future place —
To professions, to the arts
To places they may ply their arts.
These men so gay,
They, God bless them, aren’t going away.

She always thought she
Walked a tight rope be-
Tween management and
Labor in her occupation
As the senior tight-rope-
Walker in the corporation
And that was the case
Except that, if truth be
Told, she, in her heart
Of hearts, always support-
Ed the cause of those who
Worked in the warehouse
And on the production
Line and that, now in
Refreshing, retrospective
Retirement, brought her
More satisfaction than
Anything else she ever
Did besides the artwork
That she now does with-
Out any management and
Labor relations issues
Or conflicts except the
Conflict within herself
About which colored
Piece of fabric to use.

He sat listening to a
famous, female poet
being interviewed by

a popular, female in-
terviewer of spiritual
matters before a mostly

female crowd. They spoke
of the starvation of
people for the meaning

that can be found in
poetry and contemplation
and silence and they

were all so earnest and
the audience laughed
so modestly and clapped

so appropriately and
appreciatively about it
all and it reminded

him of how he felt
as one of the few men
employed at a hospice

where he was sure he
was drowning in estrogen.
The point of no return

for him came when the
conversation turned
to how dust is alive

and how one female poet
named all the dust bun-
nies in her house. He

wanted to write a poem
about testosterone and
standing and screaming

bloody murder and then
he thought about just
standing, beating his

chest like Tarzan and
screaming bloody murder
but he lives in a condo

association and his
neighbors are mostly,
single, poetry and me-

ditation loving females,
who being given toward
myth, metaphor and simile

would unceremoniously
dismiss the earnestness
of his very manly out-

burst by earnestly believ-
ing that he, the screamer,
being of Scandinavian

blood was simply echoing
Thor calling down thunder,
lightening and destruction

to which they might laugh
modestly and clap approp-
riately and appreciatively

so he just shut down the
computer, wrote a love
poem and did his daily

meditative prayer, deep
breathing and yoga.

At dinner at a really nice, up-
scale Mexican restaurant in

Phoenix, he and his wife were
joined by their daughter by

his late wife and the two
grandchildren. Five days

previously, their daughter had
completed a thirty-five mile

trail run in Northern Arizona.
While looking across the table

at her, he thought of the awk-
ward, gangly, high school kid

running around the track and
then he thought about all

the years in between and the
grief over her mother’s tragic

death and how his daughter kept
it together through therapy and

the love and support of friends
and how she had found her vision

quest through trail running
and then five days ago running,

by invitation, through the sacred, 
Navajo land of enchantment as she,

the beautiful, spiritual child
described it in detail as they

inhaled the gourmet, street tacos
and tossed back classic Margaritas.

The young man moved to Phoenix from New York City a couple of years ago to be near an uncle who had moved from New York City several years ago. The young man started his own construction business and the couple employed him to do some needed updating on their condo.

The couple inquired into his life. As he stood on a ladder painting the ceiling, he spoke about his mother who recently retired from the New York City police department after forty years on the job.

She was a pioneer of females in the department and it wasn’t always easy being one of the few women on the force. He told one story of harassment toward his mother early on and how her male police partner put an end to it by telling the harasser that the woman’s father was the Chief of New York’s Fire Department and that two of her brothers were firemen, also.

The couple expressed appreciation for the young man’s pedigree. With a deep New York accent which seemed to get thicker as his pride rose, he, paused, lowered his paintbrush and stated, “Yeah, that’s my mom and my grandpa. They are my heroes. My uncle is my mom’s brother. He served forty some years as a fireman. His health is failing and I’m here to keep an eye on him. He’s right up there with my mom and grandpa and my other uncle.”

Then he dipped the brush in the paint and went back to putting the finishing touches on the ceiling. “So, what do you think?” he asked. “It looks real nice.” they said.

He sees the e-mails from
REI and The Clymb and he
starts to fanaticize about
great hikes and paddles and

rides and runs and then he
thinks about the very slow
jogs he does on the trail
just outside of the assoc-

iation back parking lot
that goes along the high-
way across from which is
the entire mountain preserve

in the heart of the city where
when he used hike it felt as
though he were in the middle
of the wilderness. His is not

a dramatic jog; there isn’t
much elevation on the run,
but the little hill he climbs
about halfway through his

jog makes him feel as though
he is halfway up Mt. Mc-
Kinley. Then he went to the
orthopedic surgeon’s office

and the nurse said he couldn’t
possibly be seventy-two giv-
ing him a subtle wink and
a nod and the physician told

him to go right on hiking,
cycling, kayaking and jogging
as long as he had no pain
and, with that, he felt like

he had just finished a hun-
dred kilometer trail run on
the Navaho reservation near
the Four Corners on a brisk,

bright and sometime, snowy
day just as he arrived back
at the condo at the end of
a thirty-minute slow jog.