for Jayde

A poem about a friend
now tame, once wild,
now eager to nuzzle the hand
that pets and pats his nose,
his neck.

He lifts a hind hoof,
lets it fall firm on ground
he knows so well.

A fence between him
and the one who admires
his body, strokes
his mane – a fence
restrains, prevents them
coming closer.

They are together,
as close as the fence allows.
And the difference
is everything, but to them
it is nothing to prohibit
their hearts.

The story is in their eyes –
what they see is what they feel.

There is nothing like this.
This means everything –
something unspoken – this union
of alien souls – this other realm
where Otherness no longer matters –
where giving and getting
arrive, abide – as if they know
something now too special
for words, too close
for fences.

Some March Night

when no one knows,
the wind will gust
again and again
until the final push
and the dead Elm
crashes in darkness –
and you won’t even know
it happened.

In darkness

Spring wind reforms
with pressure and gravity –
the touring planets
and conspicuous moon
cycles – the turmoil
of a planet in motion –
in a universe that never
sits still, never waits
on you.

Some March night

change has come, and
you are surprised? This
was foretold by the perpetrators
you blindly follow – and by
prophets you ignored,
or ridiculed and cursed
in your stupid self-
absorption.

You don’t know

how the wind blows,
so how can you make peace?
Preoccupied with pettiness,
you can’t possibly know
truth – love dissipates –
brotherhood falls headlong
on some sobering night
at the spurious mercy
of March wind.

Thunder Sounds Morning Sky Alive

Thunder sounds morning sky alive.
Lightning flashes – and for a moment –
the dark is parted and a line
between Then and Now is clarified.

I am reminded of what I am not.

There is no feeling of loss or hope –
no call for my response.

I only watch the morning sky divide.

Rain soon follows to wash away
all noise, except its own sensation.

I am passive as stone.
Sound bounces off me – bounces
between the felt and the imagined –
the way light has come and gone.

Amethyst Review. July 2, 2024

Hada wins Oklahoma Book Award. the adanews

When first light calms blue-swept night
and cool dawn erases
yesterday’s heat.

Morning reminds us that night
is a fragment, and summer
swelter is brief.

Blue flowers color the day
in dew-filled grass. We find
ourselves in song.

We are made for the morning.
Starting over is something
we should get right.

from Sunlight & Cedar (2020)

How can I eulogize
those I do not know

faces on the news?

The border of my youth
rearranged,
by evil fools,
championed by deranged
citizens
who willfully misremember
their own family history
of migration.

How do I grieve
for children now orphaned,
for children now dead
when neighbors applaud death
as if it’s a good god’s will?

Such events should force us
to our knees in the fiery desert dust,
should remind us of Charleston
and Dayton and Charlottesville
and everywhere else
humanity is murdered,
and Hope is intimidated.

Yes, even Auschwitz.

At the very least
I should give a damn,
try out something called empathy.

It’s not much
but isn’t that the point?

When temperatures reach
the century mark, humidity
pounding as a relentless hammer
slung by a deranged fool

I find myself thinking of juncos,
those furtive winter birds
flocked in fields of memory
foraging for dear life.

I remind myself that seasons
change, and each epoch
presents unique burdens,
life that calls us to rise

above the day-to-day strife
to endure with song
despite death threats embraced,
enabled, by the complacent

those heralds looking backward
to a time when grace
was not possible, when liberty
was unimaginable

a mere dream that finally formed
America – imperfect – yet
in process, a hopeful hymn
sung in opposition to hate

by common folk, stellar
creatures who detest corruption,
who have sense enough
to resist the extremes

conjured by fear, diluted
with false patriotism
and a reckless abandonment
of anything decent.

flashes through trembling sky
across a horizon I can never outgrow

feeble clouds mark
its path – fire of heaven
skirting the rim of earth

and I, on this sandy knoll,
look out with wonder
like the child
I always must be

https://issuu.com/ovac/docs/af-winter2018.web/24