Dry Warm Place

Is war all we know?

~

Cat and chicks seek their dry-warm places

On this damp-cool morning.

Cat crawls on a willing lap

Knowing that this sure safe spot

Requires claws to be withdrawn

Simple comfort and safety call for such concession.

The cat is willing, for a peaceful nap.
~

Chicks scuttle and scurry,

Peeps tumbling like little penguins,

Five, maybe three days old,

They already know that the hen

Will spread her wings and sit motionless

Offering the safety of her brood patch

Longer than she might like; she’s hungry…

But driven by some other greater desire

She gives

To save from harm these small lives.

~

Still seated

The lap and cat

Both gaining mutual warmth,

Sharing a quiet moment

Extending a meditation,

Breathing slowly, harmoniously

Watching the chicks and the morning

Unfold,

Perhaps knowing

That peace can happen in every moment.

Three Mugs/The Big Amnesia

Three mugs clutching mugs,
And adequately caffeinated
They prairie dog the trans-Pacific sunrise
And ponder…
Unspoken…
The topic?
The chicken trapped, again, in the have-a-heart cage.
Finally,
After due meditation:
Practitioner One questions, “Can you teach a chicken anything? I mean, can they learn?”
Practitioner Two responds, “You can teach them to forget.”
Practitioner One clarifying: “You mean like amnesia…you mean the big amnesia?”
Three mugs with mugs consider the detrital grounds in the bottom
Of their cups,
And then
Silently walk into the day.

The Invisible Man

Why am I at this bowling party? How did I get invited?
I don’t know anyone
Anonymous
I stand,
Too small to use a man’s ball
Damn puberty
Only balls that fit are pink…
The cool guys divide quickly:
Three cool jocks in lane one
Three more with cool hair and muscles in lane two
The five left?
Go figure it out.
I don’t know anyone.
Just dumped out front of the Bowl-o-Rama.

So the first guy writes his name
“All Pro”,
Others do the same.
Pseudonyms
“Can you use your names, I ask? I don’t
Know you…”
Hoping for an alley ally
Ignored,
I put my mark,
Bowler number five in
The loser’s lane, as
*
Anonymously
I sit in the plastic chairs
My skinny legs sticking out of my
Old church pants
I glance up, and when it is my turn
They skip right by me.

I am the invisible man
Incarnate.

*