I miss that man in the garden
With coarse dark hair and a smile
With thick skin
And callused hands
And a tender toughness
That appeals to a child

I miss that man at the table
Behind the morning paper
I miss his simple routines
And his humble ways

And I recognize in him
The strength of simplicity
The great honor and privilege
To live amongst
Such perfect repetition of pattern
What meaning it creates in time

I miss that man in the living room
Relaxed on the sofa at night

Oh the simplicity
It wrings at my heart
That being
Oh that being

Day in and day out
Over and over again
Oh what it means to be alive

Pain moves me
Simply because
I cannot bear
to stay with it.

A part of me exhausts
As you withdraw into yourself

Pulling the thick tar of hurt
Out from my chest
And into these words

Molding it into
Meaning.

We let the silence speak
And it speaks loudly

As we lay together
tangled between sheets

The Great Niagra Falls
Spilling over like my love
loose and reckless
alive and fruitful

And having found a source
an outlet for this outpouring love
this deep inborn desire to say 'yes'
with all of me; my life

This thick lust for life
and for love
and this perfect intuition
to give it all away

I am proud to be alive.
And to have the capacity
in my bones and in my flesh
to say 'yes' with all of me

So small and so fragile
yet having existed forever.

Nonetheless, impermanent, I am.
Here to make a permanent mark
with this pen and this paper
and this racing heart
so uniquely my own
and so beautifully similar to the rest.

All here through the great devotional
journey of our ancestors
so gladly outpouring life,
like the great Niagra Falls
Into the present moment,
into our hands

And so,
I pick up this pen
and I write.

to be empty
is to be filled
with the divine possibility
of anything.

I’ll write for you
And I’ll read
And watch your soul be appeased

And the knots in my heart will become undone
As you exhale deeply