Hobos

my knee torn denim,
a cap pulled down
to warm a vagabond

and your soft eyes know
the snug nest of my heart
and the pull of simplicity

that gently melts my sorrows
like a spring sun licking
the hard edges of winter

we go hand in hand,
hobo lovers dancing toward
the music spilling over the hill

Grass

you are so eager to dance,
never to settle for sod,
too close to the earth you
might say, stomped by some
careless foot before the wind can
give voice to rising form

you writhe in the blond oceans,
pulsing a language of rustling heads,
leaning and shoving,
foolhardy forays - this way and that
hiding snakes from crows

such aliveness in motion and sound,
you sing for the burning sun,
wave to the unknowable stars
but heedless of the beating rain
that can flatten you

even fire can only still you for a season
before the ground delivers
you from your sleep
how I love your heave and sway,
your swagger as you die in amber

The Bear

I see him most days now,
he is not a friend
There is no agreement,
some place in our brains
that makes the other safe
I see his savage pig eyes
and there is no sanctuary for me
I can only go out along the river
with my back against the rush to the sea

To think that I have escaped the world,
found the mountains and forests,
my stillness, only to come to him

He will take me one day
I write this so you will not
look for me

The winter is my respite
When the snow buries him in his den,
I long to find it and kill him
in his long sleep

I loathe the spring
when he will come out
He will hunt me then,
find my frantic breath
on the mirror like spoor
He will make me look
until I bleed

It is not my flesh
that he wants

A Child in Africa

i think of Africa
and babies that will
never see past their mother's
outstretched hands
all is parched and human,
it is the looking that is tragic,
eyes that say -
see me, see that i live and want to live
and do not forget that i am you
being me, you were here
with every famine reaching
back to the sea
i will forgive the callous and cruel
spouting the sad language
of too many people on Earth
for they have not yet come
to their famine
send me the same measure
that you grant for freedom and oil,
know that i also want to be free,
these are the words that i speak
through eyes that are closing,
know that my brief life
was for you

Days of Stone

some days I am a stone
that cannot lift its weight,
a dense conglomerate
of errors and wounds,
something that settles
to the bottom
sinking
sinking
down to the silt and suckers
where murk and sightless things
companion me unreachable
in the absent light, if only
I can look up to the pearl
inviting me to reach

Flight of the Dragonfly

Flight of the Dragonfly

commissioned book cover art by artist
William Ho,  
United Nations Goodwill Ambassador of Art and Culture