He throws open a window somewhere
They say, after closing a door
Not true.
After He closes the door, He leans his Almighty weight against it
And when He shuts those Heavenly gates on that far off but quite near day
When Mercy strains and quits its pretty act
That whole dropping like some gentle rain in spring thing

When He looks at the books
Checks His notes and parts the sheep from the goats
When the game is up, the race is run
When all is said is done
That moment when before the heavenly host He gives up the Holy Ghost
When He says Depart from Me and Go
Go.
Go.
Go.
and pretends as I were just somebody He used to know

Those gates are closed forever.

Fear the Lord Your God.

Got it.

But once, on a lazy day
Wandering alone in the forest
Time spooled and pooled
spread with enough thread for a thousand dresses
Light dropped through the trees
I peeked through a window of leaves
and wondered if maybe
I’ve got nothing at all

love is the cold kiss of the air
is the morning sun
and hearing the birds singing
though the night has been long

love is the yellow optimism of a dandelion
being cut back but coming up strong
staring unblinking into the eternal face
of its own clock

love is watching the birds on the lake building nests
carrying sticks over the shadow of the great fish
that waits for the splash of tiny feet

love is watching the worlds through a window
with so stained glass
mesmerized by the wabi sabi fact
that perfection is a beautiful illusion
and nothing is meant to last

Pilgrim!
Stop your progress.
The hill of difficulty and the valley of despair
will wait for you.
The slough of despond
The bog of loss
Are going nowhere

Pilgrim!
Halt. At ease.
Lay down your burden.
Your sack of discontent,
your striving rod
will be there when you return
Do not be afraid

Pilgrim!
Cease. Desist.
The celestial city you conjure
Can be conjured again
Your illusions will wait
to be taken up once more
For now, put down your heavy hope

Pilgrim!
Nothing happens next.

Necessity labors
A mother cursed and despised
She of limitation and lack
Unlike her fair cousin Possibility, she is never praised
Or worshipped
Or cultivated like a secret garden

Still, she labors

Sometimes it is an easy birth
The child slips out quickly
Like a goldfish through your fingers
Or drops simply
Like a coin through your pocket

Sometimes the birth is hard
Sometimes there are cries and moans
Groans from the deep
Curses and frantic clutching at air

But then, always, if attended well
With patience and skill
The child crowns

And finally, after several
Or a thousand eons of breaths
With a whoop or a yowl or a shriek
Invention is born

To be dear,
To be dear to someone—
To be seen through soft eyes, long and loving blinks,
The Spanish say mamacita,chiquita,
They say cariñito,amorcito,
Each word cradled with a tender rounding of the sound

To be dear,
To have someone know—
Know that despite my years,
I am still new to the world,
Still fumbling, flailing, falling.
Still needing someone to look both ways for me,
To protect me from life’s collisions,
To save me the last sweet bite of dulce de leche,
To know
I will get it wrong
Again and again and again—
And again.

To be dear,
To be seen as forever innocent,
Told to rest, not repent,
To be held, not hurried—
To be awkward and still adored.
Allowed to remain in the Argentinian el edad del pavo—
The age of the turkey—
Unsure of the ground beneath me,
Wild and clumsy,
Flapping my wings without ever quite taking off

For as much as we scream
To be large,
To be lauded—
Sometimes what we need is to be small.
To be mamacita, amorcito,
A little thing in a big world,
Held softly in the language of love.
which understands we are forever estrenando,
trying this life for the very first time.

I once lived through a moment
containing more information than made scientific sense
layers and layers and layers and layers of data
spreadsheets that would take a whole office of astrophysicists
a lifetime to process
when you see a death happen
you also see their birth
and the confetti of assorted sobs and smiles that happened between
how can all this fit in a second?
you see your own birth too (how time bends)
and your own death (how can you see all this and still be living?)
you see weathered cricket bats
and newly built bunk beds
you hear that morning’s coffee grinder
louder in silence than it had ever been in action
and this short moment
is made up of
protons
electrons
and a heavy iron core
that can’t support the weight anymore
we humans navigate moments denser than the core of neutron stars
and when that moment collapses in
they can spin into existence
and keep spinning in our minds a hundred times a second
for billions of years
to give us time to process

hòu pà
two consecutive falling tones
- a falling tone or 4th tone
is a bit like the pitch contour
we use for a single word command in English
“Stop!” or “Go!”
without hòu pà
this fear would lose control
and sink down down into the soil
never to be seen
aside from the years of bad crops and no explanation
Stop! Go!
we direct its rotation in our mind
pausing to decompress
resuming, with years to assess the damage
unpack the baggage
hold the cricket bats
dis
assemble bunk beds

sometimes
when the ache in my feet floods up through my whole body
I find the indentation in the furrow of my eyebrows
and press tiny endless circles with my index finger
as if to screw the cap off a bottle
to let the pain out

you might not know that showing love is that simple
I see you sometimes
in the bank
or the bus
or the grocery store
and you catch the eye of me, a stranger
and I know that you know
that I’m concentrating all my strength
on not reaching out a finger
like ET or Da Vinci
to press tiny harmless circles between your eyebrows
turning the cap of a bottle
to let your pain out