Silent Retreat Day 2: Poems

Cold Beach

Juggling a bag of library books and another of grocery
I held a debate between a park bench and the sidewalk
the sky was washed out after two days of rain
my shoulders chafe under the burden

of my insatiety
but my eyes ached for the sharp relief
yellow chrysanthemums cut
themselves out of the green bed
they’ve been assigned

and so my feet – the part of me
furthest from my head – without
casting a single vote
or a backward glance headed down
the wet winding path to the
clear cold beach that I’ve longed for
– all day!
my heart pulling hard
like a leash.
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I wrote this poem after coming home from a run to the library and grocery store, on a wet October afternoon, seasonally so, but until I saw a sliver of blue edge of sky on water I did not know how much I wanted to see it… hitch your wagon to your heart!!
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Son of Babel (from word group: East, west, milkyway, longing)

So much has been said about East and West
so much has come and gone under that great divide
fallen into the crack like so many

crumbs from the tables of the synthetic gods

polyethelyne promises and satellite soap operas
hybridized hopes and cutting-edge cures
maximized margins and bloody bottom lines

rising billious out of the chasm the enormous
head of a giant crowned
with technology gone bitter
withered body bejeweled
with numbers like fallen stars
vestigial limbs trembling under
the weight of successful mergers
and failed take-overs
this towering son of Babel
lurching East from West
plunging North to South
somehow manages to gather all of us
pilgrims on the path of personal gain
through our newly minted language of profit and power

that which has scattered and rendered us apart
is reuniting us so that
we stand on the same page
of our history as it is turning

vice is virtue
good becomes bad
there is no East nor
West under the Milkyway…

all of our longing is for home
the circle is coming to full

and divine will is served.