Buddy Holly Glasses (For My Father)

All spring

I crashed through doors,

reached blindly for walls

too distant for support,

sacrificed my insides

to Arabic numerals that

appeared and disappeared

on crinkled leaves of wisdom.

All because I loved you,

because I adored you,

because I idolized you.

Then one day, you saw

the unseen

and removed the revered

Buddy Holly glasses,

and the only spectacles that remained

rested on the tip

of your dark brown, Moses-like nose.

This Spring-like Day In Chicago

This spring-like day in Chicago,

I relax on my back porch listening to the Byrds.

Two Mexican women scurry along my sidewalk. 

They balance bags of clothes on their heads.

Their alien tongue fades around the corner

as they head to the laundromat

on Broadway Street.

Their children dark, black stone eyes,

unafraid of a strange land,

roam and ramble across my yard,

their laughter made for this country.

If I close my eyes and listen,

I hear the laughter and footsteps 

of my grandfather's mother.

A basket of  dirty clothes balanced on her head,

she follows a narrow path to the river.

Sometimes we have to sit quietly and listen ...

After He Spoke, I Dreamed of Angelfish

Moon above,

sea below

-- Sturm und Drang

-- under the quilt of guilt.

And still, I feel His presence,

this night of  Eucharist.

Beneath the star of Bethlehem

a million fry flounder,

afflict my soul.

I slam shut the shutters.

Thrash hopelessly till I school.

A billion angelfish and I

falling

through the blue pool of heaven.

Immersing

-- in body

-- in water.

Spring

Spring

Spring,
who does not love your gown
of green?
In each of us a flower blooms,
and in it is a word.

May mine be strong and full of wonder!

Keith Olbermann Prophecy 7 Years Ago

Science is more than a body of knowledge ...

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."
-- Carl Sagan

When we hear a black man ...

“When we hear a black man describe police violence; when we hear an undocumented immigrant describe exploitative labor; when we hear a prisoner describe institutionalized brutalization; when we hear a young gay woman describe homelessness – our first response must not be to attempt to discredit, to rationalize, to explain away. Rather, we must give them the credit we would expect others to give to us, and try to understand experiences that differ substantially from our own. . . . This doesn’t mean credulously accepting every narrative or policy proposal that is accompanied by a claim of oppression; we still have to apply our rational faculties. It does mean treating every story with the solicitude we would reflexively grant to members of our own economic, social, racial, and religious tribes."
-- Brandon McGinley