ronny

i’m so happy and i’m so peaceful, and the world is full of suffering. i wake up every morning and sit quietly with my eyes closed for 30 minutes, trying to do nothing but be present. happy and peaceful in the present moment. a million thoughts crowd in, but i smile and thank myself for trying anyway. i walk my dog to the park and this makes us both happy, she because she can relieve herself, me because the sweeping beauty of the bay. here is a gorgeous and fit young person on their morning run. here is someone who hasn’t bathed in months, maybe years, muttering to themselves about “pork futures”—people love bacon, he reasons to himself, so pork futures are always a safe bet. the sun is warm, the breeze is cool, everything is perfect. nothing is perfect, everyone is suffering. a joyous woman in her late 30s just died, leaving behind two children and a bewildered community—why her? i am alive, i am breathing and trying to be grateful for the fact that i am breathing, i am alive. i have my parents, but for how long? i have my dog, but for how long? i have my friends, but for how long? i have my life and breath, but for how long? right now, right here. it’s so beautiful, everything is so beautiful. everything is so tragic, it’s so tragic. a good friend’s good friend just hung himself; his son found him. i take a sip of wine. i don’t cry. my heart is beating. i love my daughter. i don’t have a human daughter and don’t know what that’s like, but i love my canine daughter. i love my niece and nephew. i love that they are alive, i love that they are breathing. i love that you are alive, that you are breathing, that you are even still reading this. respond to this, send me a sign of life. i would love it because it would be a reminder that you are alive, that you are breathing. in this present moment. i talked to a friend this week: she is going through a very scare health scare, but she feels calm and fearless. i love her. i talked to a friend this week: she wants me to edit her collection of poetry about the times when she was a sweet young thing. i love her. i talked to a friend this week: seemingly out of nowhere, she told me she was depressed, and collapsed into my arms, crying. i love her. i talked to a friend this week: she held my hand while we listened to Lennon and McCartney in HiFi. i love her. people say that’s love, people say that’s not love. people say a lot of things. i love them all, and i see them suffering. the world says so much, and it’s full of suffering. in this moment, i am grateful to see it all so clearly. i am grateful that i can even see at all. i love you.

LINES WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF R— LEAVING WILLOW & OAK

i love you and the frogs outside are chirping. i am very clearly in love with you, and also, wondering: do frogs chirp?

LIKE THE FARM

a seed an egg the sun silty clay and worms—

what isn’t like the farm?

everything starts small shrouded perhaps in the billowy powder blue grey fog of the headlands and ends

later

a golden glowing orb, sizzling squawk and song, lisianthus the size of a human heart, dahlias like slow motion fireworks, tulips big and bodacious, standing proud pedaling shimmering radiating life

like

thyme sown on a warm spring day, perennially wild and free, offering oil essential in the bright light madness of midsummer somewhere between the bloom and the harvest the sale and the slaughter the sweat and the smile when one asks “are my hands still on the wheel?” unbelievably they are we drive forward counting the days counting counting counting counting the deficit of time, of money counting the surplus of time, of money counting the wealth of your presence counting always because always i am in the business of you—

and at the equinox we can pause and breathe finally something like relief in the company of family and friends gathered round like a wreath, which is many in one, like this place we nurture, which is many in one, like how the water of two oceans poured together is truthfully one ocean reuniting with itself—

a wave a wave a seed an egg the sun silty clay and worms—

what isn’t like the farm?

when the day is equal to the night when a man is equal to a woman in wondering at their place in this transition between planes, geometric centers, and discs with feet planted firmly in the dirt, hard before the rain, fingers encrusted with faith in time, boots muddy in expectation of a blossom, soil everywhere signaling innumerable blessings, flesh of flower and animal, our selves becoming

in truth

one body breathing in love inextricable.

sip this broth and kiss— old souls sighing lavender pleasure poetry.

a message to a teacher from childhood

Dear Mrs. Heenan, Thank you for letting me read the dictionary.

home sweet home

hat hung on a hook a breeze thru the clouds, feet up eyes closed and a kiss.

guilty pleasures

no guilty pleasures— only gilded pleasures, joy blazoned in gold, fire.

ocean

a fountain of ink spills blissful blind on the page sea of poetry.

i am alone now or with a cat with a mouse bloody in its paws.

another airport another green tea but green tea at the airport? a first for everything, change happens within change, waves happen within waves heat burns from within

hm a moment of clarity an image of a woman you think of her eyes think of the way she sees and understands think of the ways you do and don’t understand— so many ways so many ways of being so many wavy tresses, string theory loads

imagine being named after a widely distributed shrub with thorns and berries, imagine meeting someone on the internet, imagine eating a banana at the airport, another airport another airport