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Seek Seek Do Not Seek (Poem)
in one vibrating string hear every song you’ve ever heard
a first tune softly hummed before you were born
cryptic whimsy chanted when children play
a deepening dip and soar as love makes its trek through time
dolorous somber tones marking the shock of loss and death
a wavering catch and wail for any lonesome season
the unaccompanied steady beat beat beat
when your heart fills the silent hour
these all forever there-heard or not, it does not matter
in the movement of that singular string, you can sit within each moment
within that stillness that underlies
every shaping sound, each noting measure
and do nothing then but rest
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Do Not Ask Where I Find Hope (Poem)
petals so fragile they bleed from a gaze
cover the ground as bruised pavement
their colors darkening with every footstep
sepia shading recalling other wounds
those we hurry past and try not to see
we all have blows we cannot escape
cuts and marks and tender scars
some heal and in their repair transform
a sharpened jag becomes an expansive heart
so that even the tear-strewn weary earth
awash with wreckage from violent storms
is suddenly overrun with flowers
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Lesson Plan (Poem)
a stone picked up on a walk
gravelled bit torn from pavement
common industrial dirt
if I throw it into the waterlogged ditch
what stories will leach into the weeds
traveled myths rumbled from trucks
tarsid dreams wiped by ants
childhood memories slicked from my hand
or will it sink to the bottom, at home in the tangled slime
not needing to do anything at all
let me be like that rock
