UNCONTRIVED

          Lord, make me an instrument 

          of your peace: where there is 

          hated, let me sow love.

               —Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi


I'd settle for less

than to be made into 

an instrument,

a vessel 

in training, or even 

a cane rejected.

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is much too 

contentious; make me

cruder 

than a weapon—

genuine as plain wood.

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It's true that there’s meaning 

in effort, I guess—

but I wonder

 
if there’s just as much
in our efforts
to erase?

 
For it sure seems to take
a revolutionary act—
not to mention

 
all the strength
of Hercules at his labors—
to push back 

day after day
against the incessant wind 

of competition;

to hit backspace
on the runaway 

sentence of our chatter

and slim down each
column inch of schadenfreude 

and envy;

to rake, before we 

turn out the light, the ripples 

of history and obligation

from the ocean
of sand that we keep
on our nightstand

in a glass box

to remind us of the only 

work that matters.

THIS IS HOW YOU PRACTICE ETERNITY

Your campaigns
need not be large
or clever. 

Performed at the right time,

no advancement
leads to skirmish,

for every movement is 

recurrence; 

every way is yielding.

wait your turn and 

every gesture

may become an artist’s flourish—

after which, you'll
just forget it. Thus, it lasts
forever.

UNCARVED BLOCK

How formidable 

the wholeness, 

the bigness of the still-

uncommitted; 

the nonessential, eyeless

and limbless—nonetheless 

holding all things

in potential.

NOTHING GAINED

          —for Bret & Joe

Back when we
were young
and taut, we thought
that less
was a kind
of loss. but now
that we’re old
and loose
and have slowed (if not
given up) our pursuit
of more, we find
we’re consoled
with the prize
of enough
and rewarded
by the sight of new
wrinkles in our
faces, since
we’ve finally come
to view these depressions
the way they were 

meant to be billed 

in the first place:

not as scars,
but basins—filled
not with loss,
but space.

 

TRY NOT TO TRY

No matter how elaborate,

or sensitive, or vast—

no nuclear quantum
logic clock can
give you back your past,

fly you to the future,

or even tell you 

when it’s now.

If you really want the gift

of this subtle, stubborn,

fugitive instant, 

you do not have to 

wrench it 

like the sword 

from its plinth 

of inscrutable stone; 

you only have to take 

and hold it—

but first, you must know 

that it comes 

with the prerequisite

that you listen 

and accept it 

for what it is—or 

was, anyhow.

NOT THE CONCEPT OF A MIRACLE BUT A MIRACLE ITSELF

Name its species;

call it 

gorgeous;

describe for us its color

and texture 

and smell.

None of this 

captures 

the wordless desperation

of a few scrawny 

leaves and petals—clawing 

for the sun.