as the thunder rolls in
like a blanket covering
the cowering hills, the lightning
bugs have come out to play again,
painting the scene like little specks
of hope or nostalgia
or just enough to get us
back to the morning

We look at demands on a screen
at the hands of people
who know nothing of our lives

We complete tasks 
at the mercy of a corporation
that would never notice
if we were gone tomorrow

Running around crammed spaces
with only the capacity to
hold onto what doesn’t matter

Sometimes, though,
the pace shifts and
we take a moment to
look at one another

Someone cracks a bad joke 
and someone playfully insults in return
Everybody laughs
forgetting all of the to-dos that
can wait another moment

And suddenly I remember 
that we are all human, after all

because today the back yard with these grandsons is all tragicomedy.

The four-year-old makes a grab for the foam bat 
his little brother is using like a golf club. Little 
brother screams bloody murder, and then his face–
all scrunched up and red–smooths out as he realizes
he is still holding the bat, so he turns to his older 
assailant, grins, then swings the bat like a tiny pro 
but misses because older brother is a step ahead,
racing, shrieking across the yard.

I chuckle 
watching the scene devolve into slapstick
and hope tomorrow might feature a bromance.

a family of Carolina Wrens
nested in my garage 
for the third year

this year 
their young fluttered around
panicked 
clinging to curtains, boogie boards
the lawnmower, and sliding behind 
propped up items
while the parents hopped
under the narrow space 
at the bottom of the door
to glare and chirp at me

i caught them all 
as gently as i could
one at a time
felt the
heartbreaking want
the childish desire
to keep them safe

but they would die
my family would have said
mocked me for being
soft hearted
hide a smile behind their hand
because it isn’t man-like
to cry over such small things

my sons helped me catch them
watched with worried eyes
as i told them, i wished we could
keep all four of them
as they flitted from my fingers 
into a tree where their parents 
waited
I told them that they would
just be fine

but tonight
we’ve got a storm warning
and i’m going to lie in bed
listening to thunder and wind
wonder
if i killed
those fragile 
little things

and it’s hard
for me to even 
admit that much

I watched Twisters the other night 
and now the weather man is calling 
for a nasty batch of ’em. 

I’ll take my dog,
my bag of priorities,
and hide away.

Joy is

walking in the house

and having my dog

wag her tail

vigorously

even if she’s laying down.

The loving look in her eyes.

The wap wap wap sound

of her tail against the bars of the crate.

“You are
who you are,”
the voice across the pond
says.

“Bullshit,” 
I say.

“No really, 
I mean it,”
something in the wind
told me your name.

1.   Once drawn
the simple line is immutable,
for straight into the flat glass
flies the flicker,
it had to happen,
that instant of hard unexpected
invisible contact
to which the world is susceptible

2.   You can’t move an inch
without the tangle of touch,
synapses keep firing even in an empty room
and outside the sliding glass door
the poor bird can no longer
peck wood and the cat
becomes interested in math.
Studying the broken angle
in the slope of the bird’s neck,
you barely breathe

3.   Place your life anywhere within
a perfect circle, this will give you hope
all is contained, now imagine a fly
caught in an infinite web,
its futile disturbance is its function,
its function is its futile disturbance

You don’t gotta cry
about it, but critical
ghost says that haint it.

There is love in holding on even when it’s hard 
There is love in keeping your heart in check 
There is love in the wreckage of forgiveness 
There is love in letting finding ways to let go