Chapel of

the Hand

“Here’s the church, here’s the steeple,

 open the doors and see all the people.”

                            ~Childhood game 

“A bird in the hand is worth two

in the bush.”

                                   ~Anonymous

In my youth 

I was a 

lazy selfish

fool.

My silence

noisy with

inanities.

Barely aware

of the life

of the world 

to come, 

my hands

were lucky

to feel

their way 

home

in the dark.

Later, thrust

into pockets

of private

despair 

or folded

in discomfort

in order 

to feel 

happiness

more fully,

relief arrived

only after

pain.

Now, in midlife

my hands

are enacting

ritual and routine 

with the same

slavish commitment,

barely differentiating 

between

tactile touch

and a

posture

for prayer.

They, having

long mastered

never losing

consciousness

while

repeating the 

same things 

over and over,

(two pigeons

at the mercy

of the pale 

dove inside

my head),

have

agreed

to be used

only for 

good.

Tying my

message

to their work

they have petitioned

for flight.

Only the 

redemptive 

need apply.

If cleanliness is

next to Godliness,

who am I

to ask why?

They’ve made 

my work 

their yoga.

Rife with rituals 

and metaphor;

polishing a table, 

they polish 

themselves.

Swabbing the bowl

they flush away 

the stain of 

selfhood.

Every toilet 

is their baptistry.

Each intention

their Nicene creed.

Their tools 

are simple:

holy water that prickles

the nostrils 

and a sponge

for bathing the dead.

See how easily

they insist

my work

be love 

made visible.

They’ll not 

have me

doing things

like the undead,

zombified,

when the present

is all I

have left.

Palms folded,

they practice

a simple yet

practical prayer:

Renew everything

we touch.

Immaculate 

imperfection 

is a sign 

of soul, 

so in silence 

I now feel clean 

and unused;

my hands

abolishing sins

by picking

up the pieces 

of abandoned 

puzzles

and finding 

how & where

they fit.

10/18/21

Starlight

         ~for Kay Koval

               (1921 - 2021)

i

What is starlight

and why did you

leave home

so often

to chase it?

Through rain,

wind, and snow

you left the comfort

of your television’s

blue glow

to rendezvous

with greater lights

that deigned to 

reach down to you

knowing you knew

just how

to reach up

for them.

How dear you were

to believe in there

being such a thing

as everlasting light

as you became 

a collector of immortal

autographs, secretly 

storing them away

like fireflies in a jar.

Assisted by

the disguise 

of the everyday,

you shuttered from

star to star

unobtrusively

cultivating your own

sunny presence 

beneath

a pair of glasses

as purposeful

as Clark Kent

hiding his

super powers.

On hearing that Venus

would soon be

in conjunction

with Mars, you plotted

your amiable ambush,

yet again

donning a scarf

and glasses

unashamed of your

inquisitiveness about 

immortality and

what made it tick,

only to learn

it had nothing

to do with time

and everything 

to do with

leaving one’s

mark upon it. 

How did you know

so instinctively

that everything and 

everyone

leaves behind

a signature 

of longing?

Even a stone

yearns to become

transparent

in order to

share the

light inside 

itself.

ii

Walking into your funeral

unprepared for

tears and a journey,

yet humbly anticipating

a lesson in

mortality, 

I approached your

last bed afraid

to see you

laid bare from

the ravages of time

as well as 

a life well lived,

while keeping my

inner orphan,

(a beginning we shared)

in check, that I might

recognize my

own future 

in your 

sole departure;

a puzzle piece

lost forever,

leaving us all

incomplete.

Little did I know

that what I was 

to see

would change me

forever, for

laying there

before me was

a glowing Goddess

of beauty and

elegance, 

radiating

a singular glory,

every inch

a star.

10/11/21

The

Palmist 

of Lost 

Leaves

We like to drift 

until we 

reach water,

desperate for

one last drink.

By opening

our hands,

we bare

a sorrow

greater than

all joys 

put together.

Letting go

to take stock

of our souls 

is a gesture

that frees

us from 

circumstance,

yet binds us

to purpose.

Even so,

our joys 

may age

into mourning.

But sorrow is

not the same

as suffering.

Remembering joy

is simply bittersweet;

a recollection

leading to 

greater soul

while joy

leads only to

more hunger.

Sorrow is 

a full moon,

joy, a 

crescent.

Melancholy memorializes

what it has loved.

Walking the city streets

we fear others

will see our despair. 

So we dress 

to go unnoticed.

Where we are 

has roots

that never reach 

below ground.

Ever in the act 

of self-regeneration,

we remain

brittle leaves

buffeted by 

life’s livelier

currents.

Others pass

by us

in the street 

not caring

which dying tree 

we may have

fallen from.

We maintain 

our sorrow

because who can

reconcile each moment

being a farewell 

to the moment 

before?

In search of the sacred 

we carry 

our lives as if 

solely responsible

for their memory.

Arriving anywhere,

our mouths stuffed

with dry leaves,

we remain obsessed 

by travel, despite 

there being

nowhere else 

to go.

Time is a ruse.

Pain obliterated it

long ago, yet

its hardly behind us.

It no longer matters 

where we find 

ourselves; 

soul is a scar.

From now on

the world can’t help

but be

a portrait

in distress.

A face bleeding

through

a woman’s

dress.

Though, not

without beauty, 

but rather,

in full display

of an anguish

that softens

hides. 

Maybe its true,

maybe

we were added

to the multitude

so that the world 

could feel itself

more fully.

10/06/21

 

Lessons From a Dying Garden

In order to survive the pain 

of beauty passing,

as so much dies here

and so often,

the flowers teach being; 

being what one is

and where one finds oneself.

If self satisfaction is a failure of imagination,

amounting to nothing, 

only repeating;

we can learn to bloom 

in spite of our dismay.

Flaccid cups of chilly sunlight,

the drooping tulips care little for love

or adoration, 

while losing their perfume

and leaving lipstick stains 

on an errant cuff;

a tipsy farewell to evidence

their fondness.

Brittling sprigs of sage 

gone to mulch, 

dropping to the ground

to flavor the earth

with their long goodbyes.

Their scent lingering on fingers

like a lover’s name

on the tongue.

The basil, long since gone to pot

or as some might say: to seed,

draws its last bee

only to lose its reputation

over a May-December

flirtation.

Perennials believe in reincarnation,

so the peonies are planning ahead 

for their next appearance, 

knowing full well

they’ll always look exactly like themselves.

Which makes the carnations cheerful,

though rather too chummy. 

As for the annuals, 

they’re not entirely in the dark

knowing only that the dormant seeds

amongst them

will bridge the gap between

this world and the next.

09/30/21

 

The Beauty 

in the Fading 

of a Bruise

“The colors! The colors! Stop the colors!”

                          ~Tippi Hedron in Marnie

In the mirror the clock

tells a different time.

We’re patients now.

All of us.

The world’s a hospital;

this is where we find ourselves.

Now every room’s a waiting room

waiting for our names to be called.

Someone looks up from a magazine

forgetting to disguise their distress.

I remind myself that despair in the morning

can lead to gratitude by end of day.

Between desperate measures and coping skills 

this may be all that’s holding us in place.

The scales have fallen from our eyes

and the colors close in.

Some colors conceal 

an Old Testament violence:

Teal sets it’s trap.

Blue, a camouflaged pit.

Yellow, a hangman’s knot.

Green, a meat gone bad.

Red, a trip wire on the stair.

Purple, a plunge into a morass.

The bottle of Rivaroxaban reads; “May cause bruising”.

From now on will every memory leave a mark?

The difference between a weapon and a tool

is how we use it on ourselves.

If its futile to resist, at least we can still persist.

Flailing only ends in being swallowed whole.

Best to spend each day overlooking what we can,

despite the violent colors pulling us towards themselves.

Why deny flowers a life in a vase?

When only something wild can save us now.

09/28/2021