No emoji can explain your face when the cathedral is burning.

 
 

When the Cathedral is Burning

When St. Raphael’s Cathedral burned, it was a homeless man
Camped among pews with his harmless prayers and fire
He couldn’t save the stone walls, but the glorious steeple
Laid for a decade in a parking lot to be re-imagined
 
Before it too was scrapped, and you wonder
How many days until the sun goes down, how many stones
In your own walls will crumble, or pop to dust
From a poor man’s judgement?

The walls of your house are in no rush to age
You have cleared a place to plant cherry or plum this morning
Shopping for a tree, you get the call, wander the parking lot for reception
The maple leaves have finally turned
 
The reddest leaves to be found--beaming--before she tells you
Saving one after another:  Captivated by color smothered in snow
You loved her; it was clear: Years of evolution ahead, dancing in streams
Sabbatical in Spain. The foothills of Kilimanjaro
 
Furniture is dumped to the dark wet street while green lights yield to yellow
And blinks of red. You will not be told everything, for she is kind
There will be no tree, you tell your friends. Searching for words
Yet no emoji can explain your face when the cathedral is burning

Over The Falls. In Memoriam

Over The Falls

              For Hallie Pope Jackson Vavrus. 1925-2021
 
Once upon a time,
A woman, her daughters and son
The telling of stories, reading aloud
And grace soaring from her lips                                 
 
Once upon a time, in Minneapolis,
A man named George Floyd
The burning buildings, disease
The final verdict
 
And yet, the woman said, “Thank you”
“We should always graciously accept
What we are offered,” she said
The children leaned in
 
Grandkids held hands soft and thin
As nothing they had ever known
No one left her bedside
Unchanged
 
Water from a sponge
Until even that seized
Still, on her lips, thank you
When water wet them
 
Not far from her bed, Minnehaha
She is called. Water waterfall in Anishinaabe
As a man named Longfellow didn’t get it right
But water is forgiving
 
Around thinning, skeletal limestone,
Nothing is concrete; nothing set in stone
Her waters pour abundantly down,
Beyond and gracious
 
Until she seizes up
Her pouring turns to shards
And people gather in awe
At a blue mass of memory
 
A woman named Hallie Vavrus
Has gone too, over the falls
Wetted, loved and grateful
Into the freeze, beyond

An urban cemetery, a mummified squirrel and serene deer near a street that riots.

 

Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery

 
I.
Two deer breathe calm inside gates of iron
Among the headstones, underneath trees
Of an urban cemetery, in Minneapolis
On Lake Street, where sirons, where the riots
 
II.
Nearby, a woman finds a squirrel clutching a branch
Teeth bared, mummified. From shovel to bag
Into another bag, into the alleyway trash
And barely aware, like the deer, we lay under trees
 
III.
We talk of cysts in the uterus
Women’s bodies, hysterectomies
Where to be buried, or buried at all
When the earth is full in the belly
 
IV.
We hear there’s an option to mix your ashes
With the free soil from the city compost
And you are planted with trees
In parks with children and lovers
 
V.
But who wouldn’t want a stone
Not cut and polished, nor your name in seriphs
But a rock thrown skyward in time by a trunk
Holding yourself over the Lake Street calm?
 
VI.
Caught in the woody clutch of an oak
To be forgotten within a generation by the internet
With a legacy hanging weighty over the souls
The deer, and bottles of Thunderbird

Coming back from Mexico.

Coming Home From Mexico

I take a bus from O'hare
Where a fight has erupted
And the driver pleads for understanding
Then everything goes asleep
Without tranquility

Walk through the capital city
Past midnight. Not a soul
Playing the guitarron

I find my car

Where I once lived

The morning after, the kitchen
Without cracked tiles, or coffee
Laying down in the street,
The sunflowers are too heavy
To stand

Everything is sterilized at the Coop
I pour coffee from a carafe with immaculate stickers

While twins in red polka dot dresses
Cover their mouths at the produce

Outside, under green striped umbrellas
Everyone pristine, worked-out
And we are all looking up

As the homeless woman
In the parking lot
Asks for alms
While dragging her leg,
Black as barro negro

Let us crush broken shells in our palms

Shed Your Skin

 

When we go to bed without desire
Like a fire going out, the soul dims
Let us crush
Broken shells in our palms
 
Mangy beasts whose eyes do not blink
They make no sound, but are herd in the dark
Not mirrors, but they stare us back
Slick and black, draining charge
 
These are the long swaths
Let’s call them the months, constantly
Breaking down. Let’s acknowledge
How hard they have become
 
Total up the number of weaknesses
Of the brain. Multiply by months
Add hair loss, awelessness, laws of life
And the excruciating screen
 
Add choices for our nation of chimps
Add the heavy burden of keeping track
Multiply by desire
Divide by exhaustion
 
Eels, we gasp and slide
On our bellies over rocks
In severe spirals
When the stream is done
 
Slither, succumb
Squander time walking the planet
On Google Earth
Zero in on seashores and rooftops
 
Shed your skin there
Wander like a big cat
Without blinking
Forget count
 
In the candle flicker, lay your head in my lap
As my middle finger traces your lips
Persists through the canyon
Of your breasts

Dear students on a cliff about to fly

Dear students on a cliff about to fly, 

       (Commencement Speech, 2021)

 

Channel the wisdom of a gnarly-bearded god in flowy tunic:

Seek your heaven from the sky down, from your own dump site, or cry pit, or privileged cage. Do not bury your heads in your hands, confounded students, but look deep within. No, not that deep. Avoid that memory. Look beyond certain feelings. Much of who you have become is a web of ten-thousand illusions. Keep most of them.

Scan the horizons of your future. Not so far. Not that horizon. Skip certain vistas. Be completely honest with yourself and others. Except for the truth altogether. Tread water between those shores.

Delight in the moment. You only have that moment. However, struggle. Plan. Envision. Scratch at the surface of the ice as if you have fallen through and cannot breathe. Take a breath with the urgency of screaming under the surface. Adapt your game. Smile a little when you scream.

In fact, smile always. Your smiles are authentic and robust. Practice into the sky until they feel fake.

Do not bury yourself into your screen. You lean in into it like a plant at the window. Break the window, to be abundantly outside, and sculpt a crystal ball. Only bend over your crystal ball.

Don’t forget to brush. Ignore death, or, think a ton about death. There is no gnarly-bearded god. While on your precipice, know that you are the sage. Do the right thing, and be yourself. Break the rules; fuck around like there’s no tomorrow. In fact, there is no tomorrow, and yesterday is a blur. Move carefully—no, exquisitely! Whatever you do, keep moving, unfettered. Cast your bread upon the waters.

Congratulations.

Dear bones on the lake, half poking out and half frozen in

Dear Bones on the Lake,

Deer bones on the lake
Half poking out and half frozen in
Had you ambled to this barren center?
Been dragged by a wolf?
We are the deer, wondering how
We have arrived on this cold berth
 
Another day of pandemic dread
I have read the news to death
Healthy and delicious meals, check
What’s the matter with following
Birds for a raison d’etre
In their arithmetic of destination?

This sterile expanse, we call our checklist
Staves off choices until our dreams
Unmistakably point the direction
To the center of it all. We might as well
Wander out too far to be discovered
Like following birds to our terminus