Poem: Monsoon

The desert earth
drinks in the rains
like thirsty winos
gathering in pools
under bridges,
thankful

(c) 8.9.16

Photo courtesy CBS5-KPHO Television, Phoenix, Arizona
Taken 8.9.2016, shared at https://www.facebook.com/CBS5AZ/

Poem: New Clothes

He walks into the room

Stops, eyeing my outfit

“I’ve never expected to see you

In anything like that,” he says

“That’s the point,” I laugh

“I took a risk”

As I walk across the parking lot,

A homeless woman

Leaning against the wall calls out

“Ma’am, ma’am! You look

Fabulous today!”

She’s here, most every week

For breakfast, a shower, a new set of clothes

She notices I look different, somehow new

Later, a coworker says to me, unasked

“You took a risk and it worked!

Good job.”

At my desk, I feel different

Watching the homeless woman

Bounce away in new sneakers, smiling

Buttoning the jacket she did not have

When she arrived

©16 November 2015

Poem: Closing the Sea-Washed Gates

Today, another weary thought
Of how this world, this fearful world
Should forget the strides of workers past
Should let the deep, crass pockets of ruthlessness
Cog the wheels of Justice with dirty needles
Dug beneath the skin of Kindness and Compassion
The daughters and sons of Honesty and Hope
How can this land, this golden land, won
With the blood of the native children
By the blood of unsuspecting dreamers
Come to this: the disrespect of all She
Has become, to fight for flags of oppression
At the cost of the flag of freedom
To rail against the promise of Her
Once open arms for the tired, the poor;
Where once the homeless, tempest tossed
Sought relief on these teeming shores, now
We are the wretched, huddled masses
Will Lady Liberty ever proudly lift Her
Beacon hand once more?
Her own lost and loyal children quail in
Fear that she shall soon fall upon
The shifting sands of selfishness, and
Unrepentant evil

(c) 7 August 2015

Hebrew Bible: Psalm 90:1-2

"A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.  Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God." ~ Psalm 90:1-2


I dwell in You, O my Lord
Not beside the road
With no riches to my name;
For in You I am home
Without You I would be
No less homeless than
The girl on the city streets
Begging for food to feed
Her hungry cat
Indeed, should I walk up
To her as she leans angry
Against the bricks of the ancient
Tenement, her cat curled by 
Her feet at the end of the
Clothesline leash, frayed where
The knot has rubbed against itself;
Should I walk up to her smiling
And she bore her anguished
Eyes into my privileged soul
I would find my roommate
My bunk-mate, sister, friend
She has been in You since
The day you formed her tiny
Feet within her mother's womb
Since the day I first curled
Fetal within, I was her friend
O Lord, You are our dwelling place
Never has there been a place
Where we could not find Home

(c) 1 August 2012