If you are going home one day
Remember those who’ve passed
Whose lives, now weightless, hover here
Like shadows on the grass
I think of them at moments when
I remember they have died
Their presence floats about the room
Like seagulls on the tide
In my dreams they walk about
As if they are alive
In the closet of my slumber
I summon and they arise
I wonder are they privy to
My thoughts, my tears, my lies?
Should I pay a visit today
Or just talk into the sky?
Does it matter where you go?
The ground, a wall, or in the sea
Soil, marble, ocean waves –
You are no longer here with me
The majesty of silence is this
A pebble on the road
The warmth below the ground in which
A seed is newly sown
The depths of coldness, dark and deep
When waters close above
That which sinks and disappears
A stone, a word, a love
The mystery of silence is this
The early morning rising mist
The letting go of self
Into one all colors melt
For one moment I was with you
An hour and a day
A rapture in the blood and bones
That takes the breath away
The sweetness overwhelmed me
Bliss became my norm
An intimation of a home
Our hearts have always borne
There is no sense, only silence
A beating of a kind
That fills the hollowed hearts of exiles
Seeking the divine
The tree that fell is heard by those
Who wield the sharpened ax
Who dream of fields of morning glory
And whisper through the cracks
The forest is the arc of dreams
Enlivened day by day
With leaf hoppers who bide their time
And frolic in the fray
Put away the ax, my friend
And tell it in the wood
The mighty oak is timber now
The sun shines where he stood
Hey Margaret, I wrote you a poem
God bless you, my friend
The years have been long
I cannot see beyond
Now that you’re gone
So dear Margaret, I wrote you this poem
Hey Margaret, I wrote you this poem
You left us too early
I have only your song
Of friendship and wandering
And deeds you sowed strong
Hey Margaret, I hope you found home
Hey Margaret, my questions abide
Where are you now?
In the ground or the sky?
When will I join you?
The answers aren’t clear
Close your eyes – there’s hope and there’s fear
Hey Margaret, you shall ever be
Young and alive in my memory
What happens when
A weary soul is set free?
If you can, Margaret –
Please answer me
That I must do it on my own
Is nothing new to me –
Intrepid as a seagull floats
Upon the lonesome sea
Many times I dipped my head
Into the cold, dark waters
In search of what eludes me still
The tears that turn to laughter
Once I thought I saw her
Swimming deep and far and wide
She waved me down to follow –
But I was fearful of the tide
So I thought to stretch my wings
And leave once and for all
The vast and rolling emerald sea
And seek my first landfall
The sky is wider than the earth
When first one seeks to roam
Feathers finer than a freight
To guide sojourners home
Let me be a stonecatcher
The world is sore in need
Were I imprisoned for any deed
I pray remember me
Put down your stone the weight of which
Sinks deeply in your soul
Many summers sing to you
For me there are too few
When judgement roars into my cell
Like rolling thunder clouds
Let blindness be its calling card
Mercy – its vanguard
Were you to catch the stone for me
The dawn would surely rise
On hillsides where the swaying grass
Meets the open skies
Stubborn is a kind of power
You see it everywhere
Many miss the brief encounters
Sometimes they catch me unaware
I saw it in a patch of snow
One sunny winter day
A sea of green usurped its borders
Yet by night was held at bay
My favorite is the blue eggshell
Tiny – broken – below a tree
Wings stretched new upon a bough
Life escapes its own debris
She is the one who sings her song
When evening comes and day is done
She holds my hand on lonely days
When she sighs, the prairies sway
Crickets hearken to her voice
To temper midnight’s sleepless void
The wind, too, hears her overture
The mountains bow and welcome her
She counts the stars and names each one
And grants all pleas and dreams far flung
She shines her light on the forgotten
Sides with the lowly and downtrodden
Would you pretend to know her mind
And fathom life and death divine?
She decrees there is no slave nor free
All are one as all must be
