Shadows provide shade and shelter, mine to my son   just till he’s ready to unzip middle-school pajamas and soar into the sun.   Night holds future bodies still, revealing what’s inside,   peeling the last curl of humility that laughs from a ripe insecurity, called pride,   spilling secrets tightly coiled in the nucleus…

Open your eyes.

See the bioluminescence,

ascending rhythmically

up,

up

from the abyss,

or God’s firework show

descending hazily

down,

down

in dancing waves of light,

the Holy Grail of sky watching,

the aurora borealis,

the northern lights.

We need to hear and heed this NOW more than EVER! Be kind. Be understanding. People are fragile, whether they show it or not. Learn to recognize the frightened child in everyone by listening rather than speaking. Just as you were when you were a child—afraid of failure—you will undoubtedly be tempted as an adult…

If words are a bubbling brook

above the geyser of our hearts,

they’re poised

to say something about

the nature of our spirituality—

a disjointed but shared reality—

seeking comfort

in the womb of bad religion.

A carcass with a pulse,

a miracle dipped in myrrh,

perfumed a Jewish beard

and consecrated a blameless soul…

This world is so unfriendly and unkind.   How’s a teenager with Zeus’s ADHD, the rage of Achilles and the passion of Paris supposed to survive the suburban hostility of drive-by bullets of bullying and cliques of cruelty with privileged popularity without losing his mind?   If you want to get to know me then…

Sometimes monsters

of our own making

show up relentlessly

until we look introspectively

at the mess we’ve made

when we’ve felt incarcerated

without the possibility of parole

as both our own judge and jury.

Kindness is more than a word,

although all words have spark of light

because words bleed meaning,

infused with divine birthright

even out of the mouths

of mortals and neophytes.

Everyone wants to know

life’s greatest mystery.

It’s simple:

read your history

and exchange your brokenness for beauty,

your porcelain mask for the Japanese art

of Kintsugi.

Just walkin into a room
requires all the courage
I can muster.
Exposed like a nerve.
Afraid to smile.
Do I let you in—
a place you don’t deserve
to make fun of my face
and call me “Herman Munster”?
Walkin up,
wearin Supreme,
holdin my skateboard,
takin jokes to the extreme,
trying to find my tribe,
my people group.
I’ll know when I’m home:
kind eyes find me
as collective lips pronounce,
“We-e-e a-a-are Groo-oot!”