8.12.2014

Rage Gently

In your big dodge truck, pumping the gas and singing,
hymns a lost lover taught me kept me from clinging
to that Thomas poem, but the words furled in I felt alone,
saying light should rage and rage and rage
even as the grey sky pooled and moaned.

Mom and me in the ward, we were shocked and weaving,
hymns about mercy made me cry as tubes were leaving
from your mouth, but no poem about death could leave it out,
saying light should rage and rage and rage
even as your skin cooled I had doubt.

Dad and me on the deck, gazing at stars and dreaming,
the boat he showed me love with the wet sun screaming
splashes to the moon, but no dream could swoon the memory to last,
saying light should rage and rage and rage
even as the fog rolled through the past.

In your mom's big church, saying words and reading,
gospel sighs I showed them love with my voice leading
out to all the stars, but death cared nothing for us you fell hard,
saying light should rage and rage and rage
even as they shovelled ground to shards.

Even though our rage was ancient sky
I knew our shards of light could never die.

8.10.2014

Not Poetry

If there was a land of peace where empathy gave each mouth a hearty piece of dreams, would we hate still? Jews and Arabs are the same damn people. A hundred generations ago your grandmother was the same. Several thousand gens and we are all related, all sharing family descended from the same grandmother and on and on until the eon we evolved empathy because it gave us an edge over life without it, because feeling for one another increases the chance of our own survival, and yet now we fly our machines and click our buttons and drop bombs and think ourselves rational creatures, but nature is more logical than any petty justification or creed, and it demands we feel each other's pain. Who are we to deny a billion years of history, because a few thousand of conflict taught us to pretend we're the monsters we hid from in burrows while learning to love our children? The monsters are dead now. And so too will humans who pretend to be them.