Who gets to remember?
Who gets to forget?
Who gets to decide what
is or is not history?

What happens to us when
governments dictate what 
we can and can’t remember?

We who are old enough
bear the imprint of what
we learned before knowledge 
was forbidden, must speak.
The Middle Passage, the auction

of human souls. The Trail
of Tears, internment camps–
Japanese behind high wires.

No one will be taught about
any of these, or Stonewall,
or Me Too. We who came before
must teach those who came after. 

Long ago when the English forbade
the teaching of Celtic languages,
native ways, families formed
hedge schools, to keep knowledge
alive. So must we now.

You are fading now, dear friend,

No longer able to do the simplest tasks.

Not so long ago you were grateful to have had

A life as extraordinary as yours has been.

I fear now the pain and lack of control

That keep you confined to your chair

Override your previous assessment.

Your mind refuses to hold words to let you

Digest their meaning, so you cannot read.

Understanding what you want to say has

Been difficult, and now, even speaking

May be beyond what you can manage.

So, we will sit together and watch the birds,

Letting the breeze do our talking,

Loving the movement of trees in the

Forest beyond and the promise of nourishment in

The garden below, watching how the sky above is

Suffused with clouds that let intermittent rays of

Light dapple the old wooden porch that has served

You for so long, remembering, each in our own way,

How once you built these walls and roof and floors,

Walked these hills for hours on end with your thoughts

Churning into phrases that joined and mingled into poems.

I often walk along a bright Midway creek on a path worn smooth by seasons and footsteps. It doesn’t brag about where it’s been or the loads it carried, but simply exists, accepting each step. Isn’t that like humility? This is not humiliation, being stepped on, but being part of a way that people follow on their journey. The virtue of humility, so often misunderstood in our noisy world, isn’t—as C. S. Lewis wrote—about shrinking yourself down, but about a gentle turning away from a focus on “myself,” a choice that leads to a clearer view of oneself and one’s place in the world.

One more leaf falls down,
its branch connection released,
to its servant home.

I recently gifted my daughter Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, the emperor who wrote in his tent, carrying the weight of an empire while reminding himself repeatedly of his own small place. He saw himself, and all of us, as just a tiny blip in the vast, expansive cosmos. Our days, he knew, are but a breath; our grandest works, just sand slipping through fingers. To truly grasp this isn’t to feel small and hopeless, but to feel free. It means tending to the only real domain we can command, the one life we are given in our time.

Ancient stars above
my life is an exhaled sigh,
presence lights my step.

Imagine St. Benedict’s monastery, a place where lives were ordered in community, people learning their roles, practicing how to live together. He spoke of a ladder, a patient, slow climb down from self-importance. Each step, a surrender: of my way, opinions, thoughts, space. Becoming humble meant surrendering self to community, to something so much larger than oneself. That kind of quiet surrender, it turns out, inhabits a space for the spirit far grander than any ego could construct.

Monk’s self surrender,
choosing to find one’s right place,
giving up grants grace

Later, C. S. Lewis stated simply and elegantly that “humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.” Like a mountain stream, rushing along, it doesn’t pause to admire its own reflection; it just flows, purely. This kind of freedom from constantly checking my own status, my own image, allows my eyes to finally see the world, and my heart to genuinely love, unburdened by the constant need to measure up or prove myself.

In stagnant water
Cool spring stream begins to flow
Dank water now clear

For some reason she holds
three fingers up to her temple,
like a reincarnated Johnny Carson
conjouring his magnificent Carnac
and proclaims
the Sacred Heart 
is making a come back

I’m reluctant to engage this young lady,
everyone in the coffee house 
looks expectantly at us.
I clear my throat and ask if she would
sit with me at my table

In my belief I am simple,
a pantheistic agonistic atheist:
1.  everything is possible
2.  beyond the now nothing exists
3.  I don’t know
But still, I am smitten by the symbols
of my devout chidhood;
the trussed up body, nails and all
the bloody heart, its crown of thorns,
Michelangelo’s Pieta,
of which she reminds me,
a pure and simple mirage
of a virgin Mary

I go with the flow and pay for her pizza,
then she buys herself a bus
ticket to Chicago on my phone. 
She wants to see the new Pope’s video 
address to American  youth in White Sox
Stadium. I’m happy to oblige
 

Statistics:
Divorce ends between 40-50% of marriages in the United States
        (decreasing in recent years);
in our foursome
it’s looking like 100%
        once our disparate storylines
        reach resolution.
Of all the similitudes and synchronicities among us
the threads that wove us together over the last decade
        colleagues, karaoke buddies
        Covid battle-worn Brooklynites
        dealers of sunshine in an oft-cloudy skyscape
I didn’t see this
making the list.

Imagine if it had all gone up in flames
when we had each other
to stomp the burning embers to ash
before we scattered into our lopsided compass rose
hours and time zones between us
our once daily chats
    relegated to group texts.
We would’ve rented a sick duplex on Fort Greene Park
buried the ashes in the backyard
and stayed up all night
four flickering lights
brighter together.

My goal was to write a poem everyday,
but life, even with all my good intentions, got in the way.
In my camera roll there are thousands of photos I have saved.
Instead of one thousand, one word descriptions from each missed date I will say.
…Including today.
Then, I will let the memories speak to create:

6/1 Ballerina
6/2 Chauffeur
6/3 Him
6/4 Interview
6/5 Fair
6/20 Carnival
6/22 Legs
6/23 Chicken
6/24 90s
6/25 Runaway
6/26 Seafood
6/27 Poodle
6/28 Bestie
6/29 Colorful

From watching my tiny ballerina on stage Sunday evening,
To becoming her brother’s chauffeur the next afternoon.
Damn, I love talking to him and had the opportunity to share some of his story,
In the same interview format as I did the Piano Man.

Thursday was opening day of the fair and everything was half-off.
Friday was the church carnival and baby had a ball.
By Sunday night, my legs were showcased in my colorful mini dress.
On Monday, we communed over chicken (fried, tacos, and wings)
After a weekend of event success.

Tuesday, I volunteered with my colorful 90s pants on.
I was tired from the long weekend and it was hard to keep up with my runaway toddler.
I took a new friend out for a seafood lunch date Thursday.

After a month’s on-end hiatus I finally talked to my bestie, whom I deeply missed.
I’m glad I made it to church after a long night with him,
And I wore something colorful.

If you find me on my knees
begging for a karmic chain reaction
please close the door.

For the question of what I do or do not deserve,
is not up to me
but I do have some opinions.

See how the court jester plays the fool for greater fools,
closes doors and opens windows,
slender and clouded,
onto a world that idolozes perfection
while it celebrates mediocrity;
and so quite by choice
I live my hermit life, and retreat by night
to the mysteries of dream-darkness,
where shadowy forms shapeshift
among the mirrors of my mind until
in an instant of kaleidoscopic wonder
Clare is walking the hills of Assisi,
stones pressing through thin sandals,
and, over there, miles away,
Teresa walks, discalced; poets, singers,
prophets reach out, their hands to ours;
parallel lives, from deep within an ancient Earth
where dirt and spit and spirit form and reform,
stretch far into a vanishing point,
then return
like the perfect V of geese in flight.
bursting through on wild wings,
splitting the sky
splitting
the veil between us,
proclaiming yes! Emmaus roads
are still to be trod, and yes! saints
still gather in communion; 
visions and trust more radical now,
doubts entertained,
clouds of unknowing
embraced,
there being
no other choice.

at the end of the
world I’d like to stay with you
if that’s alright thanks