it could be any afternoon
 
 
 
I am a poem.   so are you.

I stand alone.   you stand beside me here.

I am a book.   I write words.   I mean more than that.

I am an only son.   I am first.   I am last.

I am a student on a yellow bus.

I was young.   I have memory.   I remember you.

I remember loving you.   true, for better, for worse.

I do the best I can.   seriously.

I refuse to fight.   past and present tense.

I drove a red pickup truck.   I smile when I can.

I have rescued people.   I’ve been rescued.

I am older than before.

I am broken inside.

I love.   I eat.   I sleep.   my life.

I swim.   the ocean is one home.

I am the center of a universe.   one of them.

I am the salt in my blood.

I sleep both more and less than I might.

I am a friend.   I am loyal.   I’m not the best.

I try to be who I am.   I am me anyway.

I am tall.   I am short.

I am soft spoken.   I am persistent.

I endure.   for now.

I love you.   that is the best of me.   of all of us.

I remain.   I will go away.

I love you.   I have nothing better to say.

 
 
 
 
 

 

the Dalai Lama told me so.

 
 
 
 
do I think it matters, but not for me.

no question marks.   not empirical.

a process of relationship.   like

the moon, the earth, like sky, like

my hand.   like a white butterfly.

shall I worry for the trail thirty

minutes behind me now.   will

I return.   would it be the same.

the better wish, will it remember

me.   as I now remember, there.
 
 
I used to be as big as the universe.

and will be, again.   no fare,

remembering.

it’s all gone inside.   that’s the part

the Dali Lama said to me.

in a dream, didn’t I say.   just like

right now.   loving you.
 
 
there, that’s the part I always want

to keep.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
in his honor

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet

 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 

          feels like dying, being alive.
 
 
 
this poem, what did it look like when
it was a first birth.   not a question.

          stepping stones.   after all.
 
 
 
 
here there is a room.   there is a desk.
four walls and a roof.   oh yea, a floor for my feet.

          wonder.   is a pinnacle.

it’s the second floor above.   desktop, two arms reach.
garden where there isn’t roof.   letters under fingertips.

a fence, a gate.   sometimes snow.   listening.
          all I mean.
          it is more than me.
a road, feet on stone.   quietly.

random noises.   make far and near.   I’m not the center.
          even when it feels that way.
 
 
these raining words, more kind than me.   more better.
more stronger.      more loving.

more astonished.

mostly so.   that they find my fingers eagerly.
 
 
it is a blessing.    after all.