City lights, city lights –
Look at all the city lights!
Some are red, some are blue –
Some light up a roof –
Such are our summer nights.

A therapeutic wind blows
As I dare to look below
At the freeway steadily
Moving as an artery
By the bright headlight glow.

From such a great height
In the lateness of the night –
A thrill to my young heart
I feel before we must part.
What wondrous city lights!

Sweat is the other garment
  You wear in the desert
When the only water is in the cactus
  And all but the flies are inert

But a cool layer of sweat
  Is a hiker’s proof of reward
For taking a thin trail
  And in curiosity, moving forward.

Just north of Minneapolis
on Shingle Creek
my Dad and I
would pull on our worn brown leather skates
the endless task of lacing them up
and then skate down the narrow
frozen stream where fresh wounds
bubbled up between the jutting rocks.


I want to go back to those days
I took for granted.
I want to follow my Dad up
that treacherous stream, barely missing
rocks, branches, open water.
I want to remember what it was like
to be in the sixth grade
to have that dark, cold
winding river ahead of me
and not be afraid. 

Don’t tell it to the wind
To be blown away as vapor
Or share it with a gossiper
As fragile as a dandelion.

Don’t speak of it on the mountaintop;
Even the clouds have ears.
For fear that the Devil hears –
Don’t pray for it aloud to God.

Let the wish build up inside
Then straight-faced, release it subtly –
As your actions make it be –
Until its existence can’t be denied.

For the favor of people and greed
I will not bring shame to my namesake.
A believer's crown, they don't esteem;
For the favor of people and greed
They lie and do a hideous deed
But take heart – enjoy what's good and straight
For the favor of people and greed
Will only bring shame to your namesake.

By a gently flowing creek –
  I saw a swallowtail flutter
About my head, as though meek –
  And land softer than a feather.

He was large enough, I swear –
  To sit in all of my hand.
He did not mind that I was there
  Or that I was entranced.

Soon, a second butterfly
  Distracted him by swooping down –
His mate, I surmised.
  How fiercely they swirled around!

Then breaking up, they moored
  To sup water from the red rock
Like two tasters of one accord
  Complimenting the good stock.

Every day is a new adventure –
  A new iota, a new gnosis –
Search not by the easy standard
  But see through the eyes of genesis.

The more I learn, the more I love
  What man before me has done.
It catapults my soul aloft;
  I yearn for that higher plane.

Push back those old perimeters;
  Notch in my brain a new wrinkle.
I forge pathways never traversed
  And find my world bigger still.

Let us drink in the sunshine
From a cup of globe mallow
As do the angelic kind
Who sup alongside God’s throne.
Here’s to another springtime.
Here’s to hope for tomorrow.

Happy eyes do not need the sun
  For they, like yours, have a light of their own –
A cutting light the demons shun
  That confesses to a kind, ageless soul.

Brown upon brown, they draw me in;
  I can’t look away nor could I leave
One who burns with a burning passion –
  With an innocence I dare not displease

And when I look into your eyes –
  My loneliness is burnt to a dry ember.
I know your happiness derives
  From within and they who see remember.

Shine for others, shine for me

Love me tender, love me strong.
Love me with wine and song
On a hillside all the day long.
Love me with a joke or two
With stories of people you knew.
Love me until night releases you.
Confide in me all that you fear.
Whisper words as you draw near
Words you know I long to hear.
Death, that sting, be accursed!
Love me for what life is worth
And know that I loved you first.