That tree is huge

What kind is it?

I know so little about them

Especially my neighbors

Just walking

My right shoe is loose

Wait, now my left shoe

Or is my right shoe tight?

Not sure it matters

Just walking

Asphalt paths among blades of grass

Uninvited but here to stay

Don’t lay the sidewalk

Til you see where the people go

Just walking

A woman in the park

And now another

Am I a threat?

What if I were Black?

Just walking

Large stones arranged in circles

Who decides?

Do their shadows tell time?

Theirs or mine?

Just walking

Walking slowly, do I look weird?

But I see so clearly

My imbalance, not theirs

The birds chirp me on

Just walking

Thank you, leaves, for cool and shade

Oh, and for air so I can live

You know your role

What’s mine?

Just walking

Arms flailing free

Feet kicking ahead

All without my thoughts

When whimsy shows up

Just walking

Please keep off the grass

Ok, but what else?

Save our planet? Be kind?

At least they said please

Just walking

Morning dew in the field

My shoes are wet

I feel perturbed

How does the dew feel?

Just walking

Parks everywhere

Not enough parks

I never noticed

Privilege

Just walking

Sunglasses, eyes safe

False views easier

We can’t see each other

Or choose not to

Just walking

Wetlands? Here?

You don’t belong

Years of knowing

No-ing

Just walking

Plastic trash under a tree

Never to decompose

We can’t be bothered

The tree never complains

Just walking

Back home where I belong

But how is this different

From where I just was?

Or will be again

Just visiting

Tired and weary

Can’t take one more step

My get-up-and-go

Has got up and went

I have to do this

I have to do that

When all I want to do

Is sit down and stand pat

But it takes just a moment

To give self-pity a shove

And change my “I have to”

To “I get to” . . . with love

Onto the beach path and into the dunes

At the hilltop crest, salt air strikes my chest

My journey still fresh, with no time for rest

Well under way now, we must all leave the nest

Stepping by sight just might seem right

I most likely won’t stumble, fall over or bumble

But that will bring me only to where I can see

Not to where I ultimately hope to be

Footprints come and footprints go

Pushed down by weight, blown away by fate

We walk together one by one, two by two

I am because you are, I exist because of you

The sun breaks above the distant horizon

Warming the mood but the moment is frozen

Forever in time, this scene is mine only

Lonely but not alone, in frame with humanity

Out now on the wide beach, the sand cool and soft

My senses are sharpened, yet my mind becomes lost

Between beginning and end, in this mortal middle place

Do I have enough pace, do I have enough grace

Seagulls crying laughter, their offspring following after

Flittering then fluttering, calls rising then stuttering

Nature’s philharmonic sounds and melodies

Rhythms and harmonies from fellow creature families

The waves crash with ease, carrying a damp summer breeze

All of it given over without so much as a please

Surrounded by all this generosity

I don’t exhibit enough curiosity

About why I get to see this place with my face

So full of beauty, none of it earned from my duty

I’ve been too important, too busy, too gruff

This presence is a present I don’t unwrap enough

Drawn closer to the water’s edge by my gait

In no hurry on this journey but also can’t wait

To get where I’m going, as if I knew where that was

To make sense of my sojourn, give my life a because

Because without one we aren’t one, separate and apart

We must not breed hate but love from the heart

Compassion and gratitude not just mere platitude

Love and relationship the one incarnate attitude

The sun overhead now, like birds the times fly

One earth step closer to the ultimate by and by

My body it fades, showing wrinkles and tatter

But this walk that I’m on, my only true matter

It’s what I do now, between dune and shoreline

That brings this day honor, your honor not mine

Like children filled with wonder, their spirit more alive

How you get where you’re going is where you’ll arrive

A virus amongst us

We’re so quick to judge

Who here feels open?

Who just won’t budge?

Maybe it takes less black and white

Less trenches

To celebrate existence

Not just social mentions

We see you peek, green shoots long months, fallow

Where did life dwell, in dark, blind from vision

Blurry return, glory kingdom – evr’one

Rested, new birth, greetings, hearty hallow

Behold tanager, cardinal, robin, sparrow

Calls and colors, lament, bright hymn begun

Anew, dawn’s light melds with our charge, dominion

For us, this land, these things we think we know

From thee, Dear God, from dust to dust translated

You say abad – to work and till and serve

Yet we contort and claim, judgy, what nerve

We take, we use, who cares, your plan not heeded

May we see our error, mind our brash tongue

To love and care, Lord dwells, sarx you have sprung

Tears of unfathomed despair

Muffled anguish filling the air

And bouts of laughter, odd but true

Make unexpected cameos in the audial milieu

Sadness and joy, close cousins, odd couple

Humanely united inside this human grief bubble

Heart-picked prayers and memories to relate

By family and friends, perhaps a brave soulmate

Pastors and eulogizers framed by deferential bouquets

A makeshift floral encampment diffusing divine rays

Every color, every stem, every petal and scent

From loved ones near and far, all thoughtfully sent

Then time marches on, as mourners recess

From sanctuary to cemetery for earth’s eternal rest

More flowers distributed, one-by-one laid in place

A tearful procession passed that vessel of God’s grace

Life’s endless circle, crowds come and crowds go

In the corner of the frame, a waiting backhoe

Solemn walks back to cars, locked arm-in-arm

Each goodbye hug a beat longer in this epitaph farm

Eventually home by yourself, the script has run out

Perhaps now it’s time to rage and to shout

They’re gone and they’re gone, alone now to grieve

Surrounded by only those arrangements and wreaths

Day in and day out, they wither and die

One-by-one reminders of the ultimate by and by

That’s when it hurts most, not shock but reality

Will you ever again smile, feel upbeat or sense levity?

Yes, what happens next, stringing long days and lost hours

Whatever will you do . . . after the flowers?

What’s trapped inside and what may spew out

We’re making it up, we’re forever in doubt

There are no shared manuals from which to take

God willing none of us will make that big mistake

Does life have focus, a call, a purpose?

What is about me versus every one of us?

And when you are not seen, falling to the ground

How do you know . . . will you be found?

We each have a history, some baggage, a cast

Can we ever truly outrun our past?

It will catch us up, make us who we are

Nursing us eventually to our joint north star

And if you are lost, the dark crashing through

Try to believe there will be morning dew

Because there is faith, there is hope, there is love

Showered with grace, gifted down from above

So please do not feel that you are anonymous

Your gifts and your beauty, they’re right here in front of us

I declare from now on, sure as I’m on borrowed ground

You will never be lost, please know . . . you will be found

The weather was just right

My skin both warm and cool

The skies clear and blue

An encapsulating pool

Arriving early in our nation’s capital

For a long day on the go

I had been playing a CD in the car

So was not yet in the know

Not knowing what had happened

Would change our lives forever

The news I heard did not make sense

A plane had hit one tower

By the time we got a TV on

Lower Manhattan on every station

Both towers now engulfed in flames

Broadcasting across the nation

Unable to comprehend it all

One crash maybe human error

But those billows in broad daylight

Two had to mean sheer terror

Before I knew, the screen split in two

The Pentagon now burning as well

Outside my window the Capital dome

Was I this close to living Hell?

People tried calling to get me to leave

Flip phone networks not working

Oh yes, I had to escape DC now

With more airborne planes still lurking

Washington was all noise and chaos

Every turn a siren preaching fear

My only way to navigate out

Keep ebony smoke in rearview mirror

Once back on the highway north

My brakes started giving out

But no way was I pulling over

Only one thing to think about

I had left the house angry without a kiss

We’d fought about life that weekend

A day on the road, a needed detente

Time apart for our hurt to mend

How wrong I had been, stupid in fact

To leave her in that state

One toddler flittering, another womb-fluttering

No way to depart my soulmate

As I arrived home to towers falling

And a country field now an inferno

I hugged her long and strong

Full of every imaginable sorrow

So grateful that our firstborn

Was oblivious to what played out

Our hearts and souls were broken

Spilling every cry and shout

Later that day word came from the city

Grim news about a friend from school

Hearing the nickname I knew so well

“It doesn’t look good for the Bull”

His funeral would be surreal

A church service without a coffin

A dreadful scene for all involved

One that played out far too often

But back to that Tuesday, before it was 9/11

Unending hours of channel hopping

Needing a break from the horrible scenes

We took our young son shoe shopping

Seeking some normalcy, with none to be found

Our daze continued for who knows how long

As news came out, more questions than answers

Each day a new theory, each week a new song

Twenty years on now, still hard to fathom

Both babies from then now out of the nest

Thankful for our third birdie still roosting

But the pain from that day weighs no less

So much has changed, so much hate and despair

How much we vilify the strong and the meek

When what we all could do more of for sure

Is spread grace and turn the other cheek

Today’s weather an eerie carbon copy

Of that fateful day from 2001

A reminder of all that happened

A moment that only terror won

Please remember all the lives that were taken

On September 11th and onward

And know that whatever emotions we feel

Love will always, always move us forward

Trenches or bridges, what is your trade?

What is your purpose, the one that’s not paid?

Shovels and backhoes, dig deep if you please

But that’s just the low road, where none of us sees

What’s possible, who’s over there, bridges to make

Ladders and cranes take us higher, for heaven’s sake

Do unto others or shore up our borders?

Did we somehow forget we’re all invaders and boarders?

Switches or olive branches, what do you wield?

Vultures or doves, who feeds in your field?

And who crawls and creeps, who makes our oxygen?

Our fellow sojourners, so often forgotten

Trusted person, safest place

Favorite pastime, all lay in waste

What you’re left with, crumpled and heavy

Your deepest dark secret, anxiety stands ready

Victims stone-faced and frozen, an unpayable toll

No . . . survivors they are, floodlights for the soul

Say no or say yes

Each has its cost

To suffer or to bear

The unbearable cross

How is it they leave

Yet we feel away

The best part of us gone

Still home but left behind

You have gas, cash, and food

And memories of here melding

With hopes of what’s ahead

Yet here we sit, home behind

Time passes too quickly

Feels like you just got back

These four walls hold a void

Distracting silence, home behind

The cycle repeats itself

You were born to fly but

Our nest limb is too light

Scant chirping, home behind

Grateful for who you are

Blessings shroud in sadness

Our hearts travel with you

Bodies remain, home behind