Places

What we think
We have left behind
We have not left behind
More than the faces
The places appear
Before us as immediate
As before, as considerate as ever
The dusty streets remember
The frenetic feet of yesteryear
Want to know if they've arrived
The sandy school ground
Asks if you are certain
Where you stand
The church where you prayed
Before every hockey match
Knows you played as well as you could
The loco shed where the engine shuttles
Readying for another journey
Asks how the journey has been
Knowing all journeys must end.

Divine

Never fear what is not here

What is here is what is dear

It won't last, it's almost nightfall

What lasts, when the flowers fall?

Even the fragrance fades

When the memory pales

Who remembers the way

Who knows not to stay

When he left no one wept

For who sleeps when sleep has left

Who doesn't fly when the sky calls

What is mine when the curtain falls.

Grace

The day falls silent
When clouds fill the sky
With the promise of rain
The trees seem quieter
Even the birds only whisper
Peck at the grains with respect
For the hush that comes
Only at dawn and dusk
When time is at a loss for words
Does not know what it wants
Whether to rise or fade or disappear
All the world wants is grace
Though it will not mend its ways.

Morning

This is as cold as cold can be
This month when even the air
Shivers with hope and despair
For the reclining god to stir
From his death-like slumber.
We left our dreams hanging in the night
Teeth chattering in the mist
When it would have been best
To be at home, snug under the rug
Sleeping through yet another dawn
Not knowing what has gone ---
Enough of this waking and sleeping
When waking is more sleeping ---
This time we have risen before the sun
To wake the god with songs, the way
We put him to bed with the lullaby
Tell us what will wake us, to see
The world without the lies others weave
To see it for what it is, not to believe.

Evil

Does evil not know what it is
Is it so, because it is beside itself
It hates and feels it's right
As it is easier to hate than to love
It gathers the mob under its flag
That makes hatred respectable
Lynching an act of love
For the holy cows;
The good cannot hate
Even what hates it
For it knows what poison tree
Evil has eaten from
What fruit it has taken
At whose devious counsel
What paradise it lost
When it listened to the beast.

Grateful

To wake up every morning
To be able to see
To walk to the rest room
On one's feet
To be able to breathe normally
After all that smoking
In the early years
Watching the sun rise
One is grateful
For another day
There are so many things
To be grateful for ---
For what never sleeps
When we sleep
Neither when we are awake.