“We must risk delight.” Jack Gilbert

They were fighting over the last scrap of bread

and night was coming on, with no moon overhead

but only stars and cold air to drink.

Even so, they had found a round stone that very day,

and laughed to play a game of their own.

Now they lay down with linked arms and slept,

dreaming of food and warmth and mothers who kept

them safe, held them tight.  

Night comes soon enough.  We must risk delight.

                              R. Palmer

April 4, 1968

April 4, 1968

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate.  Only love can do that.”       Martin Luther King Jr.

Since that date,

a number of people have urged others

to change, to move mountains,

to grow large eyes in a small world.

These prophetic people

live high above clamor, carnage and strife

yet they claim our pain.

They give instruction on life

and offer words. 

They twitter recycled thoughts into hungry space

and sing old songs

to jolt our fibrillating hearts.

These fading words

are only the event horizon

moving away from a pure center—

a center that knew walking,

waking and evident truth

in a strangely disordered world. 

I feel heaven circle round a Memphis balcony,

waiting for one more angel,

waiting for us to send up one more angel.  

                                          R. Palmer

Rebirth

Every minute a cell dies, a cell divides, a cell is reborn.
Every minute a new thought moves up the neuronal trail
leaving silver tracks back to yesterday's thought.
Every day I awaken to my sun shining with a different name.
Is Tuesday's sun different?  Is it Monday reincarnated?
"I am tired of myself of yesterday," said one of Basho's students.
How the master liked to hear this.

Sitting with eyes closed
I discover a new self.
Another new self.

all manner of things shall be well--

The anchoress looks

into high rafters for one bold mouse,

scurrying over the quiet cell

then smiles,

settling into her ceaseless

life of thanksgiving.

Townspeople bring old bread,

moldy cheese, rancid wine.  

With these she makes a daily meal 

but remembers always to leave a crumb 

for the small life overhead.

As a child she ran loose-limbed,

wild with sunshine.

That warmth still encircles, enfolds.  

Now she looks up to see neither mouse

nor rafters but instead golden beings

singing, chanting, shouting praises to an Almighty God.

With a quick pen she writes

all she hears.  All she sees.

Soon, exhausted by seeing, purged by writing,

she collapses on her pile of straw.

Mouse finds its way to her pillow

and together they sleep 'midst the ruins of heaven.

Shoestrings

She laced them tight on your fat feet
and you raced down the empty brick street
with the pilot hat tied tight 'neath your chin
kicking a tin can for the noise, for the din,
for the joy of a boy released from the house
where apron strings were everywhere like
fearful fingers holding wings tight to prevent
freedom, to delay flight.

I hold your shoes today--

You outgrew the need for speeding round
country corners in squared off Indiana.

You engineered bits for rockets that never left
this heavy earth.

You found peace in the ready rounding
of the lawnmower and the strong beat
of steady, friendly hearts.

You lie quietly six feet below my tears
and I hold these little boy shoes.
And feel the joy of freedom---
the way of souls in flight.

lemonade

Right when I thought the light was
brightening, when time was sliding
through my hands like that
prom dress I wore the spring of 1968,
when saying yes came easier than
complaints or criticism,
when life had gotten to the sweet spot
and I was ready to hit one out of the park,

Just then....
...well, you were there.
You saw it happen.

I've got a new normal now.
The sweet spot moved, but hey,
I'm flexible.  Adaptable.  Human.

And I've got a taste for lemonade.

Some Shape of Beauty

Very soon will there be voices calling us all to come home.

We will loiter in tall summer grass,

fireflies in hand, feet bare and streaked with mud,

waiting for the sound of our true names.

We will run away from long shadows leaping behind us

toward some shape of beauty.

We will find ourselves home again.

Tired.

Happy.

(This is my love poem to John Keats, that darling boy...)