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![]() Four Questions
Now that I am grown, now that my brother presides over Seder in his own home, now that my seven-year-old nephew has outgrown the asking and coaches his little sister in the
questions, word by word— Why is tonight different from all other
nights? —only now do I know not simply answers, but the ways that our questions are answered, with still more questions: How is tonight the same as all other nights
like this? Dad explains to his grandson how over and over we sit down to this meal, how his own grandfather once asked the questions, then heard them asked. We begin with memory, tell stories, and sing of our ancestors and of God who redeems us. We are always enslaved, and we are always being liberated. While the sun burns its way from night to night, the Red Sea touches shore, then recedes. Atonement Songs
Prayer
for Swift Rivers
Father
Buddha for the
Children of Pleiku
Suddenly I'm in a Hurry Softly sitting in the sunshine, a bit of straw in my fingers, I'd wonder at the ants measured, goal oriented, carrying loads for the queen. I'd play Nintendo games, do crossword puzzles Throwing seconds, days, weeks into small events and experiences. Suddenly I'm in a hurry. Images of Virginia: Her video dreams imposed on wild thrashing gasps of anger against the night. The path's length never bogged me down before. Red dirt road climbed and fell with light breezes. Sightseeing at will, old rock carving caves, museums of glass and steel, treasured books with musty smells, intuitive leaps. But now that need to understand all in a gestalt lets me down boom I'm on my ass on the road. Travelers pass crying "patience" and "one step at a time." I sit in stubborn silence. I'm in a hurry I want all languages now especially Spanish for my blood. I want to roll the R's like a phallic kiss I want to spray out my passion like raw whisky in the rhymes and rhythms of the Spanish declination. And Hebrew next, Holy tongue that hides the mysteries of all within small roots to a tree
of life. I'm in a hurry to communicate, while fires burn in cities crying we're too late to understand. We must awaken from our slumber. I sit with beer can, passive: the news images intermixed with messages from our material god. Sound bites of lullaby. I want it all and now each grain of knowledge drops like sand in an imagined hourglass. Dorothy in a poppy field sleeping through the quest and no wise good witch to bring snow. Only a cold lump of unrisen
bread sitting in my chest. The Night Sky
Coin of the Realm How valuable to tremble, in your presence, a shudder of vowels, praising the white shoulders of sleep. Light swallows sleep and roosters. I listen for your mysterious breath, tunneling lonely toward morning, dreaming of columbines, guitarrons, and citronella. In night's tender moss, the smell of roses is an arrow on fire. We take aim and find first light like cool milk. Drink to a day of stringed instruments. We take the open road. Count off twenty centuries. I am afraid of nothing, but with my body of skin and music awake. The Sorry of Flowers A dark horse ambles slowly through my apology. A field of alfalfa and wild columbine, I'm that sorry. I'm sorry in the way of going too soon to seed. I'm sorry in the way of haste and meadows, a season of sorry, a harvest
of regret. But there's that animal in me that is not sorry. That has moved with mysterious resolve towards insult and mayhem. That is maybe a bit gleeful, accelerating to a brisk trot, Then full tilt gallop, a whirr of black behavior. Unforgivable! PLUM
TEA IN THE DESERT 1 After afternoon sleep, the water has just started to
boil. 2 Flavors swirl on my tongue-- fruit tart, sugar white, the wild familiar patina of sweetness, shielding me from despair. 3 I drink to the smooth, green skins of the fruit shining in the leaves, the dusty Sunday yards where we have picked; several notes in C-sharp major in the vibrato of the flute: we were lonely, picking plums in a boom town,
longing to escape the desert. 4 I drink so the jays will call to each other, the junipers have new growth after the June beetle is finished. I drink to dreams, blue mussel shells, the plums rolling toward each other while still clinging to the tree, the wind shaking the tree; by next month, the plums will ripen, darkening , darkening. Here in the desert, we can do
what we want in spite of the dust. 5 Your hair has gotten thinner, but it still flies, falls into your eyes; I think of hugging you, the bones in your back, begging to be counted; let's go upstairs, I say, let me count them there. A tart song spins from to you. I hear the
stillness inside the wind. 6 The jays call to each other, the plums tremble and hold on. I bring you desire: a flute full of colors. 7 The girl that I was still lives in my slender fingers. poetry
price lists Take an orange, for instance. It doesn't snap or bite like a petulant lover denied audience once an affair is over. I mean, all the stink and mess of breaking apart, so unlike an orange. When you are done with it, the sweetness lingers. Up to 6 whole chicken breasts Orange Butter: 1 - tablespoons frozen orange juice
concentrate zest of 1 orange 1 stick of butter Grate orange rind. In a bowl mix softened butter, orange
juice concentrate
and orange zest with a wire whisk. Brush chicken with mixture and
grill. Brush again after cooking. This sweet sauce can also be used on
fish. |
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