held by a child's hand

there were times this year
when you wanted to quit
and some of it was dangerous stuff

such as preparing to be homeless, even looking forward to it,
and rejecting the value of your own life in this culture...
abandoning self

and on a smaller scale but no less deeply felt,
threatening to walk away from the production...
abandoning others

and your foot was almost out the door, but for lili...
you couldn't scar that innocent heart,
even if your life depended on it

and in a way, it did--and still does...
so you stayed on in this difficult world
and remained to play it out on the small stage as well...

i could imagine her eyes wide and full of you
as she sat cross legged on the floor, charmed like a rabbit,
watching her grandfather acting and interacting with the crowd...

and your voice was so animated and full of her,
retelling how she ran to you at the end of the play...
i could see then how it all was...in that moment--

the whole world in a small body,
a source of your being, a take of your measure...
and so love fulfills its purpose

in a child's face that lights up because she loves you
and claims you...a small hand holds you
to life and meaning.

i don't know how the celebrated christmas child will
touch me this year...it gets a little harder each time to see
past the angels and shepherds to get there, to find new meaning...

often what inspired a story about the miraculous birth of jesus
is more easily grasped in a story about saving tiny tim...
it all depends on what you believe jesus was about...

for christians, the light accorded to this child
is the candescence of a savior, the star of human
striving for reconciliation with the divine soul

for the feral christian, it is the same end --
oneness--by different means...by learning to love
and to claim the sacredness in ourselves and others

clarity

nothing was sacred before i understood
before i was moved and made my own peace

now as then i see that what passes for thought
is cherished far more than what passes for love

make me clear so that i risk with my whole being
not hiding behind words, but breaking open with song

make me clear so that i dance with change
unmasked of fear's piety and revealed in love's mercy

these are such thin little words posing as thoughts
mere sighs compared to the poems you once read to me

you were my rexroth, i your marichiko
two sides of one coin, two faces one soul

now i seek your warmth in the russet autumn
in the caol ila and the coals in the grate

truth is, you are always present in this room
in the sanctuary of my lonely hours

i feel your forgiveness in a hugged pillow
when things i could have said sit cold by my bed

every few minutes i look up at the clock
only to see your face smeared by my own tears

such are the dark nights of my heart's disarray
to know the sadness that deepens inside us

'though i cannot be there to love us through this
stubbornness wills me to find another way

so i call out my muse to make taut these lines
to pull your lovesoul to me and hold you fast

and then read back to you, to heal and to warm
us both with words that once set our hearts on fire