April, 2025

1.
I have earned and care for a small plot of land
A small cottage
A dog
Sometimes a woman
My son.

2.
My daughter has found a good man
She has love, wisdom, and a daughter of her own
If they keep loving one another
They will be lucky
That’s what the owl in my yard says

3.
In the yard are Tibetan prayer flags.
Brought and hung by my sister. 
When the breeze blows in off the bay
The things I’ve wished for come to me
The smell of the salted air
Birds at the bird feeders
A sense I belong
That I do not consume more than my share
Some seaweed, some flax seed
Though I give back so little –
Juice for the hummingbirds
A house for bats
My flesh to feed the worms and earth
in a pauper’s grave
by a sacred lake

4.
When the breeze goes out 
it takes my hopes and wishes with it
they ride over the Tibetan prayer flags
and are made holy
My wish for peace
for relevance
for the happiness and well being of others.
my compassion washes over the banners
carrying words I do not understand

5.
These words reach the bay
where small fishes
are being chased by bigger fishes
chased by men 
in boats with two hundred horse power engines
towed to the beach in three hundred horse power cars
to catch one poor fish
to remind them of the hunt
the cycle
the natural order 
of the big eating the small
forgetting the grace of small nets

6.
And beyond the bay 
Are the wars I finance
Fueled with jealousy, envy, hunger,
The wish for relevance,
An inherent primate consciousness,
And a sense of mission,
A desire to be of use,
to turn oxygen into carbon dioxide
so that plants too may live 
shivering in the majesty 
of immense rolls of summer thunder
stretching out to remind us
of our tasks
and our roots
in the heavens.

© BRTaub – 8/8

She asks
How is it possible
She has loved one hundred men
And at their impaired age
This is the best love making she’s known.
He says it’s an illusion.

She asks 
Can he make her taller
With blue eyes
And unwrinkled skin
And can he really unearth the dead
But what she is really asking
Is that he hold her
And promise to never let go

She says
You are so solid
And means the flesh she draws near
And the man inside the flesh 
With his flaws and foibles
And a willingness to be weak 
Stands in his power and strength.

Then she says his name
Speaks it into the ether
In ways he’s never heard it spoken
Radiating out into the universe
Before she herself goes out
Radiating who knows where
Although before getting far
She taps on the glass
Peering in through the window
And again mouths his name.

©brucetaub – 02/08