do people still wear masks?
the kind that make you seem
better than you are, i mean.
perhaps we’ve moved past that
point in our history. or maybe we just
call them filters now. it makes me
think of the jetsons. perhaps you’re
too young to remember them. it was
a cartoon set in the not too far
future; a mid-century modernist view
of how the world would be. they call it
retro-futurist now, but anyways.
they had vid-phones that showed you
a video feed on a tv screen in real time
of the person you were talking to,
which has its pitfalls, of course.
but where there’s a need there’s a
way to fill it, so in this world a

how strange to think
that trees could be the
cause of so much pain.
in the beginning, there was
only grass and sky, the
buffalo and the people of
the prairie. displaced
is too nice a way to say it,
when genocide would be a
more accurate term. in a word,
we bear witness, the almost
guilt I feel at being here,
now, enjoying the cottonwoods
cotton, from trees now

my best friend from
elementary school was named amy,
spelled differently from my
sister aimee’s name.
i don’t remember much of
what she liked like, aside from the
coke bottle lensed glasses. we spent
more time at her house than
at mine. she was an only child.
when we played there, and went
from one room to another,
we had to turn all the lights off
as we’d go, which i found strange.
her father was laid off, taking
odd jobs as he looked for work.
i remember him being home during
the day and showing us his
typewriter once. we learned about
correction ribbons and white out
for when you made mistakes.
he always had a stick of gum
for us, juicy fruit or big red from
a pack of 5, something we

i loved living in the desert.
we spent two years
in tucson and one
in santa fe. people
say you get used to
the mountains, don’t really
see them after a while,
but i never did.
the saguaros in the desert
were the best. always
waiting to embrace you with
their albeit prickly open arms.
they look so much
like people i was always
alarmed when one of them died.

i heard once that memories
work more like movies than
like photographs; the details
lose their edges,
become smooth. like how
in a film montage things
go by in a blur, condensed;
leaving only a generalization—
a ghost. we always think
we’ll remember, but
memories fade. i tried to
hold onto her for as
long as i could. cherished

perhaps we’re all, because:
human nature, a bit concerned with
legacy, after we reach a certain age.
but for some, we don’t want to j u s t
leave a mark, we want it to be a
permanent one. i think about books,
how they crumble, back into carbon
and lampblack, the stuff from which
they come. even though there are
scribes, conservationists whose own
life’s works are preserving the ones
history deemed more important
than their own. paper, yes, it’s a
delicate thing, but what of the pharaohs?
we still have the bones of the structures

there are those songs that
stick with you, define
and describe a certain
time in your life. i can
remember hearing nirvana
for the first time,
an explosion of angst
that gave shape and voice
to everything i felt inside
but couldn’t say. i loved
each new album, but in the
end their songs were
overplayed and lost their
shine, right before kurt
cobain died. it was
a shock. i remember

they seem to be
everywhere as of late
as if it was fated
to be this way
and people i meet
make me wonder if
signs were there
all along and i’d
just missed them,
didn’t know where
to look, but once you

i woke up this morning feeling
down about the rain, how it
threatened the events of the day
i’d poured much of myself into
dreaming into being—an idea of
gathering literary lovers at a
neighborhood space. and the park
had seemed like such a favorable place.
so what happens now? do i cling to
the vision, though we may get
washed away, or let the current carry
us somewhere else entirely? what if it’s

when i was small, i
loved the start of
the school year, with
it’s fresh box
of crayons, the tips
still pointy, all my
favorite colors
lined up in a row.
i could pick the
brick red from
a box of 64 or more
on the first try.
loved as well the
smaller boxes with
special crayons,
ones with glitter, or
scented like
peaches and cream.

when i was small
i loved to build with
blocks, great cities
stacked with different
colored shapes, each
one a different shade.
we would leave them up
for days sometimes and i
was sad when we’d put them
away. sadder still when

there was a week so much
rain fell at once they introduced
two new colors to the map.
when dark purple turned to plum,
they added a lavender too.
we’ve become used to the
hundred and thousand year
floods that keep coming around
far too soon, turning roads
into rivers, second story
apartments into first floor
ones with lakefront views.
as we watch our neighbor’s kid
paddle by in his canoe, i think:

we have, perhaps, given
industry a bad reputation,
because progress progresses
too quickly sometimes, and people
get trampled in the rush toward
new things, or by capitalist
greed-iness. but industry,
being of use in the world,
the value of work, dignity
of labor, discovery, learning
more about our earth; how to solve
any problem, the answer is there
if we reach for it, seek truth

i was a childhood lexiphile,
in love with words, and the
stories they could tell. especially
those stories in which words
that didn't previously exist were
conjured into being. so different
and exotic compared to the words
that were already there.
there was alice and the wonderland
jabberwocky words-brillig and slithy,

there is something that hold us in harmony,
as if our Creator designed us this way.
our home like a nucleus, and we
are each one of its electrons,
with an orbit of its own,
in constant motion, but drawn
to the center of our atomic family.
but we are molecular too, as we bond
covalently with others we love
to form water, carbohydrates, the

it was supposed to have
been you, the fragile one who
reached out, in need of help.
i am so glad you did, that i
reached back, and met you there.
so glad that it wasn’t too late
for you, because there never
would have been an us.
i love your heart, the inner
workings of your mind, how you
calm the storm inside of me.
you are my safe harbor
when i am lost at sea.
i’ll be your home, so there’s
never a place you could go
without my love to embrace you

there’s less than a generation
between us but you’ve been a
spiritual father to me. a role
model through how you’ve
lived life and our work
in ministry. you’ve been a teacher,
yet its burden of responsibility
is one you’ve never shirked, for the
love of those you lead. perhaps
it’s an ease that comes with a
lifetime of welcoming new life into
the world, whether born or
born again. you’ve helped me to
grow as you’ve shown how to walk a
narrow road without turning
aside to the left or the right.
because Christ is our center, it’s
never mattered if we vote the
same way. God made us to balance

there was a time in
my life i would have
thought entirely about
what i didn’t have,
about what i
was striving for.
when you lose every-
thing, even the smallest
blessing feels like a gift.
for that which life has
given back to me, i am

we have a large bird feeder at
our house in the backyard.
it used to be that birds
would flock to it, their
wings a symphony. but since
we switched to songbird food
we see far fewer now. i hope
they are alright, wonder
if they grew self conscious,

my coffee never tastes
as good without you at
the breakfast table, laughing
over our morning hair sticking
out every which way.
the afternoons spent doing
mundane things without you here
to make their meaning full.
the evenings i can’t hold you
close, as we talk about
philosophy, staying up
late to ponder the nature
of infinity (how can something
not end if it never began?)