The Fly-by
The sky is a summer’s day blue
and clouds like stretched cotton balls
sit atop the dove gray water bearers.
I sit, for the first time since I arrived,
doing nothing, perched on a deck chair.
Suddenly, my frigate birds
and the brown pelican with the white-striped head appear,
the frigates looking like hang gliders,
the pelicans like helmeted pilots.
The sky turns gray—rain is imminent,
but I vow to sit, to enjoy the fly-by.
The birds hover like dark specters,
silhouetted against the leaden sky.
The air currents sustain them;
the frigates’ tails appear as legs.
I marvel at their gracefulness.
The ziplock bag has my valuables.
Even if it rains, I’m going to sit, to pray, to be thankful
for yellow flowers and turquoise waters.
I feel the tension draining away
as I enjoy a found few minutes
to be free from the work of the day. Amen.

When the Chain Is Broken

Matter is neither created nor destroyed—so the scientists say;
the chain of humanity seems to lose a link.

A loved one makes a last transition
to a place beyond our sight.

But the chain is unbroken,
for we live and die in a continuum

of ancestors who shall never die as long as one remembers
their names, their accomplishments, their joys.

When loved ones are no longer on the earth,
they are of the earth and with the ancestors.

They are present in the bloom of the flowers,
in the leaves of the trees,

and the sound of the thunder echoes their names,
while the flash of the lightning

illumines all who remember the essences of their presences
and recount the wonders of The Supreme Being’s gifts.

First “Retired” Fall

There is a crispness in the morning air.
The sun is playing tag with the still-green leaves,
but every now and then,
one scarlet leaf dares to poke itself out
and gently whisper, "Harbinger of things to come."

My favorite season is ripe upon us, and I miss the excitement
of childhood preparations for the new school year--
new clothes, new notebooks waiting to be filled,
the smell of freshly-oiled wood floors and generations of chalk dust
somehow suspended in high-ceilinged classrooms.

I miss the sweetly acrid smell of burning leaves,
working with new students--some eager,
others reluctant--challenges to find ways to reach them all.

But I also have grown to love the freedom to write,
to think, to be, and to do what I want early in the morning,
without having to join the traffic hustle and bustle
or to shiver in the cold darkness that autumn and winter bring.

In Times of Crisis

In Times of Crisis

I lie, half awake, half asleep, half watching, half listening
to the television’s Saturday morning accounting
of weather, traffic, and other minutiae of the day,
when I am startled out of my reverie
by streaking, pulsating orbs and vapor trails
like I have never seen before.

I hear the newscaster say that contact
with the Columbia has just been lost,
and I instantly utter a call to the One Who Holds Us All.
My “Oh, my God” seems to be my life’s stabilizing force
whenever events too horrendous to contemplate happen.

My mind flashes back to catastrophes,
to gut-wrenching times in the past
when all I could do was to utter other, “Oh, my God’s,”
and I remember the Challenger’s Y-shaped vapor trail,
Kennedy, King, and Malcolm X assassinations,
National Guard troops standing in front of my neighborhood High’s Store
with rifles bayoneted, tanks in the streets of Washington, DC,
and making my way home through smoke and flames and teargas.

Then I remember other life-changing moments:
the daily body counts from the war in Viet Nam,
planes crashing into the World Trade Center, a man hurtling through space,
his leg making a figure four, his hand still clasping his briefcase,
the Pentagon in flames, a vaporized plane in a Pennsylvania field.
I recall children killing children and the cottage industry
of funeral teeshirts saying, RIP with a child’s vital statistics listed along with a name.

And I am forced to wonder why we cannot hold in reverence
all life on the planet, forced to question
why we cannot teach peace instead of studying war,
forced to think how hypocritical we are to mourn
the lives of seven while, at the same time,
planning the annihilation of thousands.

I am perplexed and saddened as I call forth again a prayer

Oh, my God, Maker and Ruler of us all,
show us the way toward humanity and peace;
lead us away from violence and the carnage
of war and crime and hatreds allowed to fester for centuries.
Make me a person who practices peace, shows love, respects all life,
and leaves the understanding of crises to You, who understands when we cannot.
Amen.

2/1/03