Some mornings are illuminating.

This man was bent down

over the granite paving

at the foot of the office building,

his face a few inches from

the seams between the blocks.

And he was quietly screaming

some agitated gibberish

at whatever he was

privately seeing

in the black and white

speckles of the stone.

I had the sense

that they were talking back.

The police have been

standing near the fare gates

of the BART stations lately,

apparently to discourage

fare evaders.

On the train to Antioch,

at the far end of the car,

a big African American woman

was singing gospel badly

and testifying loudly

into a cell phone

held near her ear.

I had the sense

that there was no one

on the other end of that call.

At my end of the car,

a very pale and skinny dude

in sports gear spread

a small quilted pad

on the floor, sat down

and did his yoga

as we hurtled under the bay.

When we emerged into

the East Bay sunshine,

he rolled up his little pad,

put his foot up on

the bar next to the door

to stretch his leg.

The gospel lady and the yoga dude

didn't exit at the 12th & Broadway

station, everyone who did

grabbed a quick look at them

as we exited the train.

If stones could shout

I never counted Sundays

in the springs of all my past.

I begged the very stones

to shout, that I might rejoice,

And kept my gaze upon

the pavement under my feet

where I saw the gum

and garbage, the despair

of our distracted age

and lay my body down

upon the ground so that

all I saw would be monumental.

And that would be my wry

comment on the world.

But the stones refused

to speak, and so I listened

to the babble of the street,

the wind in the oaks;

melodies, melancholy

or sweet. 

Sundays were the days

when Friday's promises

had all drained away

and only television,

wine, and meat remained

to close another week.

This Sunday will be different,

I'll venture to the island's edge

and seek a frond to hold

and walk along the shore path

listening to the sea

splashing on the stones.

And I will celebrate,

not cerebrate, the wind

will be like the breath of God,

the sun a blessing hand.

This week I will participate

and let grace replace

the knowledge I thought

I had. May it be so.

Watching the grass grow isn't so boring

I've been watching a dandelion

that sprouted in the pot on the porch

with the string of pearls a couple months ago.

Snuck in there while I was distracted.

The string of pearls don't seem to mind sharing.

Bloomed, briefly, as they do, a pretty yellow blossom,

but nothing special; the special is when

they go to seed and form that downy globe. 

And no, I haven't blown them to the wind.

I'll leave that to God and the whims of the breeze.

The leaves are edible, my iguana loved them.

And there is dandelion wine which I've never tried,

but I read Bradbury's book when I was a sprout.

The clover is speckling the turf with tiny white bursts.

They pop up and last until the maintenance crew

comes through on their weekly grass-mowing mission.

No mercy for them, but I noticed, the African daisies

in the big vacant lot were spared, God bless 'em.

Everybody calls him L

About the fifth time Larry hits me up

for spare change or a smoke,

he says most people call him L.

So I always keep a couple bucks

in my pocket and give him a smoke

if I have one, it's one more

I won't have to smoke, see?

How you doing, L? Need a light?

Yeah, man, you're beautiful.

It's bad, hard out here, nobody

wants to help me out.

But at least it ain't raining

and the sun's out so you know...

and you always help me out,

you're beautiful, man, God bless you.

I'ma go get some food,

thank you man. Shakes my hand.

He walks down to the corner

past the other young men

hanging out. They have a

sound system playing something

loud, a soundtrack for the sidewalk.

A couple of young women

shimmy to the beat,

cut their eyes at L as he walks by.

They all shake their braids and laugh.

Look at me as if I am a fool,

then resume whatever important

business they have been discussing.

L walks past the Burger King

without stopping, passes up

whatever ninety-nine cent thing

they are pushing now.

It doesn't matter.

The sun is shining

and L is smiling and it'll probably

be the same tomorrow so

I'll make sure to have a couple dollars

and a cigarette if I have one.

It's one more I won't have to smoke, see?

Good intentions

I was going to tell that story.

The one about the Gilded Age;

full of hungry westward destiny,

steel rails on stolen land.

About two Victorian fossil hunters,

Edward Drinker Cope

and Othniel Charles Marsh,

friends in youth, bitter in maturity.

They scoured the West

in search of dinosaur bones

to add to their collections

and burnish their reputations.

As a movie, I can see it,

the expeditions, the dynamite,

Wild West saloons, and the

brocaded parlors of the East.

And in parallel, like the tracks

across the continent,

the subjugation of the native

peoples of the land.

Big enough for Hollywood,

perhaps too big for me.

I could do something smaller;

just my camera and my eye,

follow my affinity

for the valley of my birth,

the orchards, crossroad hamlets,

the ditches that stitch the fields.

If that should be too much,

I love the feel of paint

escaping from the brush,

exploring shape and line,

the textures of the mind

mapped on canvas,

wood, or paper,

born from the hand.

If I don't revive these

shelved intentions,

one thing will survive,

I'll paint them all with words.

The end of the world as I knew it

I thought I knew,

all that eyes

could speak.

What hallowed

texts

could teach.

That the sorrow

of today

would be followed

by bleached

tomorrows.

That the turn

of the season

from gray to green

would be just that:

another milepost

in my alloted orbits.

welcome, but flat.

But now!

as our planet's axis

approaches equinox

and morning sun returns

to bathe the silk flowers

in my office window,

and almond blossoms

scented the Sunday air,

we walked hand in hand,

and Spring's promise

of bounteous life unfolding,

never felt so real.

I thought I knew

the world, what it gives

and what it grabs,

didn't hear the promises

of all that could be had

if we but listen

to all that eyes can speak

when hearts open

like lilies in the sun.

Accidents

On the one trillion, four hundred
and twenty billionth day

on planet Earth, at three o'clock

on a sunny Tuesday afternoon,

eight out of ten plants and creatures

began to die.

I say Tuesday somewhat arbitrarily,

because the days of the week

had yet to be named,

so my naming is as valid

as anyone else's.

Anyway, on that Tuesday afternoon,

the comet Chicxulub,

slammed into the Yucatan

not far from the present day
city of Merida.

No creature larger

than fifty five pounds

survived the cataclysm.

Except for leatherback turtles,

sharks, and crocodiles.

Twenty four billion days later,

an apple fell on Isaac Newton's head

and he hypothesized

that all the bodies in the universe

are attracted to each other.

He called it the law of gravity,

which some physicists say

is the fundamental principle

that underlies the universe,

Galaxies, stars and planets,

the comet that struck the earth,

the apple that clobbered

Isaac's head, Johnny seeks Sally?

Freud said there are no accidents.

I suppose that hypothetically

you could trace a chain of causation

for everything that has ever happened

since this world and this cosmos
exploded from a single point.

The hurricane spawned

by a butterfly flapping it's wings

kind of thing.

And that would answer

the question of how,

but leave the bigger one

unanswered -why?

Some would claim

there is no why.

-and others say

that God moves

in mysterious ways.

And I might say 

that if hydrogen

didn't love oxygen, 

we wouldn't have water.

Freud also said,

"Everywhere I go I find

a poet has been there

before me."

This morning I saw an ancient

Ford Galaxie convertible

with one functioning tail light

and a drooping muffler.

Looked like it had been

in some kind of accident.