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Pianissimo Hands not moving. In place. Poised on lap. Patient. Murmuring in the congregation; mostly old ladies. Family. Relatives. Friends. Two priests sitting. A small church near the ocean. ~ A wave laps ~ A soft dip at the shoulders and head. Coffin-shaped keys caressed with the force of an angel's smile; softly, simply, invisibly. ~ and recedes ~ First holy notes at the funeral mass for Joan Kachigan. Fell in the garden carrying laundry to the garage and never got up... until now. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Suitcases I was on Spring, stopped at the left turn light onto Bellflower, when I saw four suitcases neatly stacked on a dolly, all strapped with a canary-yellow belt. New suitcases, not battered or worn; on the sidewalk, in the early darkness of late afternoon. And behind them, partially hidden, a man, sitting on the curved concrete lip of the fading Worthington Ford car dealership smile. I thought of ribbons around jacarandas in 2003 - trunks standing in for men until they returned home from war - and how the man might have moved out of his family home just today, just this hour, and how he was dressed like any other man in the neighborhood. How he could have been any man from any family in Long Beach taking a stroll after work, if not for the four suitcases on a dolly, instead of a dog on a leash. His head was bowed, one side of his face resting in a palm. And in the dying light of early evening, I couldn't tell if he was on a cell phone call or staring at the sidewalk, searching himself for answers. Then the light turned green and I slinked away in my Jag, thinking the threads that bind us are tearing at the seams. Knowing we never know what's just around the corner. And on the radio, a soft-voiced woman from NPR, asking caring, ratings-driven questions about the devastation in Haiti. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
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Judas
And has that moment long ago
Flown from your mind; it has not mine.
And did your throat run wet or dry
The hour before you gave the sign?
And has your kiss upon my cheek
An age since left your trembling lips?
And from this cup did not our God
With love design for us to sip?
Bring me they silver-coined embrace!
Bring me thy lips betraying deed!
Bring me they heart's repentful grace!
Bring me thy love on wings of speed!
I will not fail to shine for thee
A light toward forgiving sleep,
Till all who lose their way return:
In this belief, your kiss I keep.
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Fireflight
A jagged-edged charcoal line in the sky -
three, maybe four dozen birds flying north,
a mile above the 22 freeway,
five, maybe six miles south of Garden Grove.
Ahead, just hours into its rise, the sun:
a goddess, naked and burning with life
behind a thin swath of white chiffon cloth;
blinding; illuminating creation.
Almost invisible, like kite strings caught
in some holy pull, side-by-side for miles,
thousands of migrating gulls; each beating
heart a part of a family heading home.
To the north, mountains. To the east, mountains.
To the southwest, the weight of an ocean.
An avian etch-a-sketch in the sky.
God shaking out his electric razor.
How do they know when everyone's leaving?
How do they know about wingtip vortex
and drag? Do they really communicate
on such an advanced, organized level?
Did they know to wait for yesterday's rain
to wash the dark choking smog from the air,
so they could breathe in the full majesty
of late-fall, snow-tipped mountains as they fly?
How many here could take it on the chin
and lead from the front for hour after hour
then rotate back to help the weakest wings
and not veer from the plan to act as one?
Cars and trucks are passing me on both sides.
Spirit voices urging - This is neither
the time nor the place to daydream and dwell
in cool metaphors and cold memories.
Do you know this feeling? To want to slow
when all around you is a blur of speed?
When the firemen climbed the Towers that day
did they feel that sense of another's hand?
And amidst waves of terror rushing down,
when everything beneath them fell away,
did they agree, as one, on what to do?
To hold formation through the ashen cloud,
and keep on climbing.
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A jagged-edged charcoal line in the sky -
three, maybe four dozen birds flying north,
a mile above the 22 freeway,
five, maybe six miles south of Garden Grove.
Ahead, just hours into its rise, the sun:
a goddess, naked and burning with life
behind a thin swath of white chiffon cloth;
blinding; illuminating creation.
Almost invisible, like kite strings caught
in some holy pull, side-by-side for miles,
thousands of migrating gulls; each beating
heart a part of a family heading home.
To the north, mountains. To the east, mountains.
To the southwest, the weight of an ocean.
An avian etch-a-sketch in the sky.
God shaking out his electric razor.
How do they know when everyone's leaving?
How do they know about wingtip vortex
and drag? Do they really communicate
on such an advanced, organized level?
Did they know to wait for yesterday's rain
to wash the dark choking smog from the air,
so they could breathe in the full majesty
of late-fall, snow-tipped mountains as they fly?
How many here could take it on the chin
and lead from the front for hour after hour
then rotate back to help the weakest wings
and not veer from the plan to act as one?
Cars and trucks are passing me on both sides.
Spirit voices urging - This is neither
the time nor the place to daydream and dwell
in cool metaphors and cold memories.
Do you know this feeling? To want to slow
when all around you is a blur of speed?
When the firemen climbed the Towers that day
did they feel that sense of another's hand?
And amidst waves of terror rushing down,
when everything beneath them fell away,
did they agree, as one, on what to do?
To hold formation through the ashen cloud,
and keep on climbing.
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No Samaritan
I went down Wardlow to Woodruff yesterday
and saw a man lying on his side on the sidewalk,
his torso in a bird of paradise landscaped verge
between Ralphs parking lot and the sidewalk
and the man and the landscape almost blended
into suburban invisibility.
"There was a man who went down
from Jerusalem to Jericho, and bandits
attacked him and robbed him and beat him,
and left him with little life remaining in him,
and they went away."
At his side, I passed through the pungent death-cloud.
Not a physical or spiritual death,
but a death of determination
to keep on striving;
beaten down;
born into desolation;
and I recognized the smell the grace of God.
"And it chanced that a priest was going down that road
and he saw him and passed on."
I prayed to our father, the father of us both:
I'm no better man than he, just more blessed.
Fortunate to be married, to have a home,
to have the worries and unfulfilled dreams that I do.
I'm no better man than he, just more blessed.
And I knew that was not enough.
And I passed on
not wanting to be late for an appointment.
"And likewise a Levite came and arrived at that place
and saw him and passed on."
I prayed to our mother, the mother of us both.
And I reclined in the contoured dentist's chair,
thinking it poetic that the man resembled Doctor Roe,
with his black hair and black beard
and grey and black clothes,
and I resolved to look more closely
if he was still there on my way back.
"But a Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was
and when he saw him he had compassion on him.
And he came to him and bound up his wounds
and poured on them wine and oil,
and he put him on his own ass
and brought him to the inn and took care of him.
And in the morning, he took out two pennies
and gave them to the innkeeper
and said to him, take care of him,
and whatever you spend more,
when I return I will give it to you."
And he was still there.
Now lying north-south
with his arms straight at his sides
and his feet crossed;
thick grey socks
with a gaping hole in the ankle.
And his face was ashen-brown or olive-colored
or a shade of white or black.
And his beard was scraggly and tangled and filthy,
and sorely lacking the dark, designer dashes of Doctor Roe.
And he was lying on Woodruff Boulevard at 1:30 in the afternoon,
with closed eyes inside a grimy-grey hoodie shroud,
listening to the faint sound from the other side of the street
of the L.A. River
carrying discarded debris back to sea,
and the faint footsteps of the people passing by.
And I passed by
and prayed for him a second time;
knowing it was not enough;
knowing I was no Samaritan.
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I went down Wardlow to Woodruff yesterday
and saw a man lying on his side on the sidewalk,
his torso in a bird of paradise landscaped verge
between Ralphs parking lot and the sidewalk
and the man and the landscape almost blended
into suburban invisibility.
"There was a man who went down
from Jerusalem to Jericho, and bandits
attacked him and robbed him and beat him,
and left him with little life remaining in him,
and they went away."
At his side, I passed through the pungent death-cloud.
Not a physical or spiritual death,
but a death of determination
to keep on striving;
beaten down;
born into desolation;
and I recognized the smell the grace of God.
"And it chanced that a priest was going down that road
and he saw him and passed on."
I prayed to our father, the father of us both:
I'm no better man than he, just more blessed.
Fortunate to be married, to have a home,
to have the worries and unfulfilled dreams that I do.
I'm no better man than he, just more blessed.
And I knew that was not enough.
And I passed on
not wanting to be late for an appointment.
"And likewise a Levite came and arrived at that place
and saw him and passed on."
I prayed to our mother, the mother of us both.
And I reclined in the contoured dentist's chair,
thinking it poetic that the man resembled Doctor Roe,
with his black hair and black beard
and grey and black clothes,
and I resolved to look more closely
if he was still there on my way back.
"But a Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was
and when he saw him he had compassion on him.
And he came to him and bound up his wounds
and poured on them wine and oil,
and he put him on his own ass
and brought him to the inn and took care of him.
And in the morning, he took out two pennies
and gave them to the innkeeper
and said to him, take care of him,
and whatever you spend more,
when I return I will give it to you."
And he was still there.
Now lying north-south
with his arms straight at his sides
and his feet crossed;
thick grey socks
with a gaping hole in the ankle.
And his face was ashen-brown or olive-colored
or a shade of white or black.
And his beard was scraggly and tangled and filthy,
and sorely lacking the dark, designer dashes of Doctor Roe.
And he was lying on Woodruff Boulevard at 1:30 in the afternoon,
with closed eyes inside a grimy-grey hoodie shroud,
listening to the faint sound from the other side of the street
of the L.A. River
carrying discarded debris back to sea,
and the faint footsteps of the people passing by.
And I passed by
and prayed for him a second time;
knowing it was not enough;
knowing I was no Samaritan.
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