Christ will come to Industrial Stroad.
I’ve seen it in the dreams I bear. 
That is where the seeds are sown.
They’re gonna build a church out there. 

The smoke will fill the summer air.
His flock will be the working herd
and each a cross his own will bear
(the foreman is The Shepherd).  

I dream that church. The embers glow,
the fires burn and steel will tear.
That’s the way it has got to go.
His smoke will fill the summer air.  

His love is water, ground hallowed.
The rivers, all, will flow in stroads
each according to Euclid’s code.
Each use according to its own.

Aardvark       aardvark       AARDVARK

    aardVARK                   aArDvArK             AardVaRK

a

a

r

d

v

a

r

k

-aardvark-

aard?         vark?

                                 22738275

an awesome, rad, dynamite, valiant, amazing, remarkable kid

You know pretty days,

when bird notes lift and
fill the breeze,
fresh and free,
then suddenly you must look outside

to see if the horror movie screams

are actually exclamations 
from joyful play,
catastrophic injury,
or total bloody murder 

of the neighborhood kids.

The Machine doesn’t know what my hands know.
It cannot feel the pulse of the ancestors
beating from rocks and stars;
it cannot understand why I would cry
as I save earthworms stranded in my driveway after a storm.

The Machine doesn’t know what my hands know.
It cannot feel the quiver and quick and tack of a life,
cannot mourn, cannot miss;
waits data-dumb as I spend long minutes with raindrops
tasting sky on my skin.

The Machine will never know what it is to pray.

What Caesar never knew

dominated but never reconciled

will alone cannot undo

Victory’s card is always wild

For Further Reading:

Gemma Hollman, Royal People: Boudica, Queen of the Iceni
https://justhistoryposts.com/2017/01/17/royal-people-boudica-queen-of-the-iceni/

Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery:
https://norwichcastle.wordpress.com/2021/03/11/boudica-warrior-queen-of-norfolk/

University of Warwick; The Revolt of Boudica according to Tacitus, text from: The Annals of Tacitus, published in Vol. V of the Loeb Classical Library edition of Tacitus, 1937
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/warwickclassicsnetwork/romancoventry/resources/boudica/sources/tacitus/

The candle light glow and laughter
Flow from the bay window at the fronT
Of the little white house on the
Mossy covered college street with
Lawn chairs thrown about
A game of comics to pass the time,

Humming turns to whistling and
We giggle after we all start yelling
‘Ain’t no mountain high enough,’
Feeling as young as we’ll get
In the vibrant normalcy of a Friday night

anything seems possible.

The backyard
of our suburban home
is transformed—

moonlight gilding the grass,

shadows at the fence
obscuring weeds
and dry patches—

and in this in-between space,
I hope I might be, too.

I just heard another shooting has occurred
Immediately I think
My survivor’s heart does not always show
For many reasons others can not know
but as I walk this journey 
I have one simple wish
That no one else will join me on the path 
and if they find themselves here
I hope they know I will always lend a listening ear
The pain runs deep
The scars do not completely heal.
It’s in community we can move forward. 

Living life is a choice .

How so much has changed and gone unchanged since we met
My favorite ring, her new tattoo, how’s his city?

This weather is like those finals week afternoons a year ago
Do you remember? 

Topics at the table make me wonder when we got to this age
Will I always feel so young inside?