Snow on Cedars

It is Monday morning.

There is snow lying on the cedars

outside the window.

The cat is sleeping

on the afghan-covered couch.

Dishes are stacked in the sink.

There is a basket of clean laundry

at the foot of the bed.

I will not pet the cat today.

I will not wash the dishes.

I will not fold the laundry.

The best that I can hope for

is to remember the snow on the cedars.

Pigs’ Blood

Terror spills like pigs’ blood

on the slaughterhouse floor

soaked up by sawdust

but the smell-

you can smell the blood

and the terror

four blocks away

where between the old row houses

women hang laundry to dry

and half-clothed children play.

Holding Hope

The life expectancy of a newborn

is little more than that of a monarch.

Their wings are so fragile.

Each downy hair, each tiny feather,

holds so much hope.

Standing in a River

You stand in a river and thirst.

You are up to your knees in truth and goodness,

up to your knees in the light

yet your eyes remain fixed on darkness.

It’s not about who you slept with

in the back of a Chevy when you were sixteen.

It’s not about the time you stole

a bottle of wine from the Seven-Eleven.

It’s not about the lies and the anger and the spiteful words.

It’s about the light inside.  The love and the holiness.

And if you’re not careful, the current will drag you under

and pull you out to sea.

Praying in the Mission Church

Her face is like a pecan,

shelled and weathered.

Her legs are the roots of a cypress tree,

bent a little at the knees, but still strong.

She walks three miles to the mission church,

kneels at a pew in the back row to pray.

She prays for her son, that he might stop living

at the bottom of a bottle.

She prays for her daughter,

who long ago left for the iron city.

She prays for the child she lost in the winter of ’25.

The dusty light from the small high window

wraps around her like a blanket.

Vietnam

The dead come to the river to worship

each morning, slipping silently through

the fog that is their shield and their shroud.

They drink from the stream with cupped hands

and wash their wispy faces and whisper their prayers,

then slip away again as the sun burns away the fog.