Sonnet #43

Water, water, everywhere, and all of it to drink
The miracles of modern science, water
Is a wonder. Turn the spigot in the sink
Clean water comes, on command, what better
miracle is there in desert plains like this
Cities dig deep wells, send long pipes
We build dams, erect industrial processes
So that water comes, and we can snipe
about the cost, if we want to, but
we must never forget we're griping
a social miracle: it could dry up
It could turn orange and rust as piping
rusts in industrial waste, clogs up like treacle,
Work together, earn these everyday miracles.

Sonnet #42

I don't believe a person can be born again

The trees can. Take a clipping, dip in hormone

Place in soil, soon the roots descend

The leaves push through, the tree, reborn,

Is ready to rise above the fields anew

Anywhere new. Underground the roots

Recognize themself, mine together through

each other, rise one soul, two shoots

You cannot yet take fingers of flesh

Place them in a womb, expect new life

No false watery grave, no ceremonial mesh

No battlefield or epiphanic strife

We remain our old selves, harder, scarred;

With some survival, maybe riper for the churchyard 

Sonnet #41

We do not know the ecosystems at our door

We only know the story that we see, there

Suburbia, a nice, safe place, clean yards, fear

exists here, though. The ants, the cats, the gore

of the hunt: We live in a forest, we just decide 

the trees and shrubs that pull the creatures to us

Our lost pets go wild, our poisons clear wide

swathes of niches ripe for colonization, abide

all you want picking at inches tall of grass

By night, the cats will hunt, the rats will run

The ants will build their fortresses in loosened soil

The birds pass through, the squirrels, possums,

coyotes, deer, all the marginal things will toil

Another meal from sidewalks. They come.

Sonnet #40

A fledgling bird had fallen in the garden
Exhausted in the heat, uncertain wings
Ecstatic flock of grackles shouted things
Hideous encouragement for their child, then
the dog noticed, ran over barking, sniffing
She did not kill, just sniff, "What is that"
What is that?" and I pulled her back at
once, the frightened, weary, bleary fledgling
Raced into the lavender. Keep calling dogs
Away, away, keep calling dogs away, away
Rest a moment, the grackle synagogue
Will wait to lead you home when ready
They have come to help, a hundred strong
From the powerlines, shouting your salvation: Fly

Sonnet #39

We are told the key to life is simply this:
Acquire, acquire, all that you desire
When you are done, throw it in a fire
There's nothing wrong with this, I guess,
What I am saying is that I am supposed
to tell you that you are wrong to oppose
The spiritual, from we that seek to subsist
Who is to say? But are you happy with it?
If you're happy, if you're really happy
Then chase consumption, keep it
We will die someday, best die happy
For me, the weight of ownership
Is the pull to become a ghost, unhappy
An attachment to the accumulated
That's why the fire: burn, dance, abandoning

Sonnet #38

Who looked upon the bitter sand between
the rivers and said, this the place where palaces
of men will rise to scratch the cloudy places?
I think not one but many had this dream
Every brick was an imagining by one
Upon another, all dreaming together
The houses almost made, accept each other
in the shadows of what was decided, done
At night, when buildings' shadows stretch
like cemetery plots below the tombs
the shadows of what could have been come
through, just a little. The people stitch
The spirit of a town out of the ghosts
Of what was almost made and what was lost

Sonnet #37

Of course you consider your voice pedestrian
You hear it everyday, use it for everything
The same words you whisper to your librarian
Make a list under your breath, talk to children
About the chores, have you eaten, how was the day?
Of course, this voice, to you, is tedium
You know it all too well, who is to say
The way you speak can't echo down and echo deep

Here is how we work: There is no play
Where every actress doesn't think she is a fool
Putting on another woman's dress, her make-up
Playing pretend. She feels so odd. She'll be called out
and everyone will think she's a fraud.
                                                             Take up
your courage, and take the stage, anyway.
                                                                    Shout.

Sonnet #36

What else can democratize us like chronic

pain? The ones who feel it know the truth

of tired, aching joints and loosening tooth

The fear that it will get worse, we're sick

All of us, to death, eventually, and pain

is like the string around the finger: remember

remember, the coming of bleak december

It changes our days, the way we seek friends

or deny them, ashamed to admit our fragility

For some it hardens them like knives of death

It is coming, nothing matters, stand hard, sterility.

Others say the hurt reminds us there is no wealth

No peace, nothing, but to ease the pain, and empathy.

These, the two tribes that rise for the commonwealth.

Sonnet #35

A met a zen master, once, who praised
The daily chore of making dishes clean
He did this task by hand, he prayed
while he worked, to the beauty of creation
Be in that moment, where what we ate
What entered our bodies to preserve us
Now is what's left, the dirty pots, the plates
Still carry the textures, the smells, plus
there's the soap, the water hot and cold
The wonder of all those different senses
Engaged, the physical act of making clean
Wiping everything clean, all that is spent
All that is saved, all that is felt but unseen
Every sense engaged, night coming soon
Be in that moment, alone in that room.

Sonnet #34

These are all the reasons that I adore

Sunflowers: First, the plant is quick

post-frost to grow into a towering spire;

Second, the root is burly thick

It digs a mine and punches down

Veracity will rise; Third, the bloom

before it blossoms gazes following the sun

As if to build a mirror to the holiest and swoon

When it faints, complete, a weeping beauty

Seeds the shape of teardrops, surrendering

to duty; Fourth, the rotting comes, grey and sooty

Mold climbs up and through, devouring

Where roots dug low, the worms appear

the stalks remain, as cemetery spears

Sonnet #33

There's a dream that comes at night,

Where demons come to take from me

My imagination holds a feathered light

The monsters cackle, sets it free

They have new faces every time,

Last night it was a Viking God,

A twisted mask of wood and bone

Sometimes they're bears, feral, broad

Other times, they're birds of pecked fruit

But always slipping out with something

Cackling, gloating, dancing, endless hoots

When I wake, I recall only theft, not the thing.

What is stolen? I don't know - as if it's never 

real, a hole in hope, a dreamscape of a sever.

Sonnet #32

We used to write for pleasure, then for glory
We wrote to live forever as achitecure inspires;
As generals and warrior kings only live inside a story
And the poet's name will sing above the hearthfire.

We used to write for money, too, in fact
The little slips of paper in the post
The clear demarcabfuscation via contracts
A little check for beer or baby clothes

We wrote these letters to history and time
We wrote to speak the god inside of all
We wrote all sins to heal them in a rhyme
To rebuild what was possible from falls

Foolish we, for robots hunt as firebirds
Malware, spyware, spiders eat our words

Sonnet #31

Someday I hope to be the man my dog
Believes that I am. The way she looks
At me is what a pilgrim sees in fog
Around a priestly vestment. I took
her from a place where she had friends
She never minded, though; we are blood tribe
A dog will die for a man, a dog will stand
Upon his grave and wait for him to rise

The cat, instead, reminds us we are not
The person that our dog will always see
The cat meows incessantly to spot
The peasant in a giant's skin and feet.

I hope to be the man my dog believes
I also think the cat is true to me.

Sonnet #30

Spider, spider, trapped in my tub,
I do not know what dropped you here,
Where your nimble limbs can't lift you up
The porcelain too smooth, I fear.
In general terms, I do not hate your kind
I value all that lives and eats of vermin
But, the stripes upon your back incline
Me to suspect you're full of poison
I wish we had not met like this
Out in a field, I'd watch you hunt
I'd cheer you on, but here it is
A broom, allow me to be blunt,
A monster in the field is cheered along
Monsters in my bathtub do not live long.