number 23

food & thought
There was coffee, of course, and strawberry yogurt in a bowl with crunchy cereal to make me feel better about myself and half of a banana that looked far, far past ripe but was sweet and cut up just fine and mixed together and then more coffee and today it is my father's mother's birthday and she is 89 years old and I call her Papaw and she loves fiercely even as her mind has abandoned her and who she has always been fades, replaced by a shrivelling woman afraid and awake in the dark and we -- none of us -- know what to do -- not with her or anyone else -- so we do all we can: we pray and we keep on trying to love -- her and everyone else -- and it was a day for lots of coffee and good talks and a birthday call to this sweet woman, getting old now, that we love so much and so badly and so more than we can lay down neatly sewn and said.

Papaw's Going Song
The eggshells of all your round
years piled at your feet, you stand
Grandmother, new life calling.

number 22

food & thought
Tonight we prayed over cheap pizzas dressed up with onions we sauteed and banana peppers piled on but the real meal was the family and how they laughed, and afterwards I stuffed myself again on two sweet music sets and a chance with my brother to chat about life and what's hard and how God moves us along with our faith that don't see too good and if song lyrics and drumbeats and chatting could be food I'd be fatter now, but happy, too, as I shuffle off towards bed, my thoughts tonight tearing out in jazzed riffs and clapping that couldn't say how much I love the music people, how much my fingers wish they knew the moves.

Noisy
I can't strum. I clap off beat.
My hands, mouth, are music-dumb.
And still, my clumsy heart sings.

number 21

food & thought
She took potatoes and made a soup, heavy for the belly and warm against all that's cold outside, against the chill downstairs in this place and we ate quietly with her son, laughing over simple, good things -- things the same flavor and character of the fare we spooned out of large coffee cups for bowls, her husband out to spend time with a friend, she and I sat afterwards, friends ourselves, talking about what's hard, what's worth anything, all our talk and my thoughts circling around the pennies, the monies and the thin pants pockets that don't have them right now, again, and all our words came out poor and honest and simple and sweet -- the song of folks that don't have and want to believe they don't need what we can lay hands on here.

Poor Folks
Snow outside, we're money broke,
sipping hot chocolate like it's
steamy champagne. Thin faith smiles.

number 20

food & thought
Made a chickeny stew tonight with heaps of hot jasmine rice and we were quiet as we dipped spoons and I sat stewing myself, still sitting in a circle with the boys at the local detention center the night before, all of us there, gathered with all our ragged bags and huddled carefully, distantly, hope straining to be heard, to speak up, gospel.

Circled
Men and boys, shackled and free,
pulled our chairs, guarded faces
up to each other, searching.

number 19

food & thought
By the time I made it home to make dinner for my belly and the family I was set loose on the high seas rolling in me, adrift with a dead engine as I cut the chicken thighs to pieces sized like my thumbs, like bites and played with herbs and a sauce -- I don't make sauce -- but tonight I made sauce, right there in the pan and steamed vegetables with no steamer and there was rice too, and I forgot to think about poetry until just now after another cup of hot tea and the sleeps are coming at me and since I got home my mind has been doing its own thing and I can't say I'm happy about that, now that I'm off to put it to bed because all of it has simply made me very, very tired today.

Cast Off
There are the days where my mind
refuses to join the raft
I'm on, taunting the many sharks.

number 18

food & thought
Driving through a cold rain this morning after coffee and coffee and coffee and a day old cinnamon bun sticky with apple bits and goo I scribbled two madkus as I changed highway lanes and the one that follows is what came best and built-up and last in a morning series -- I'd made three others at the coffee bar counter after hearing the news that two more dear friends are getting married and I chewed and sipped and watched the people about me, paired up, nucleic, or split off, fissiong atoms, we circled and we burned before I walked outside and drove off winter-soaked and pelted and alive and on my way to what was next where I would drive, scratch, continue to sound my thoughts about this conversation we call prayer.

Denouement
I cast prayers into chaos,
words molten from the deep forge --
he plucks them hot from the stars.