Rayn Roberts

Buddha before enlightenment: starved, bony
Our world, showing the bones of war, bones of desire-
Look to the moment with hope to survive
Enlightenment is here, yet we think we move toward it.
...

for Kelli

I found you gone when I arrived
...

Sometime before the land turned away from light

The wind in the wild mustard slowed
The sun, being where is always is, the moon too
...

The splash of water on rocks

at the high end
...

They led us to sunlight on the grass beside the school
Brought an extension cord, a phonograph with a box
Of many colored long silks, played the Firebird
La Mer, Swan Lake, and suddenly
...

The long hours of your drinking are now the short hours of my sleep.
Sleep covers me with black sheets
but your latino voices startle my ears.
I would cry out the window, ¡Cállate! , but civility prevents me.
...

Had he known the beauty of an apple, seen it a flower
In the palm of her hand, seen in his wife's hand the sun
Light to a tree of knowledge, knowledge of air and weather
The river, the flame, the earth, he'd know earth was woman
...

Blessed are the fishermen that free the humble pelican
From sinking line and hook tangled in a beak,
Holy men are these who catch fish and release
The insensitive prey, cold-blooded are they
...

I'd thought it idea only or myth, but I met her

Anima, my other half
Fair skinned, blue eyed, blonde as I am
...

Like the silence of those who deny truth, the silence in Death Valley
Nearly denies my being-

It is a dreadful void the white silence of my sister the moon
...

For JD

How long it took to know, however hard we wished
There was no return, no starting over for us -
...

In any moment all things are new, but in spring
All point to something in the word
And the saying of it
True as motion
...

During a breakneck chase, the moose calf goes down, the grizzly bear devours.
Wolves stalk for hours, a herd of bison gets away. The pack, sustained on voles
And mice, other small prey, mostly go hungry. A crow eats eggs of a robin's nest
Still robins abound. Green turtles lays eggs on a beach then swim off in the deep.
...

After all, as you lie in my arms knowing all
needing nothing but what is, the earth rolling away from the sun
Thunder rolling in the distance
...

Fishing at the river, some boys jump in
Swim across and back so quickly
It makes my head spin.
Were I as trim and lean as them
...

I had my annual physical today and all was well.
The doctor asked if I had any concerns, I said
I need a strong pain killer for a broken heart.
He laughed, but I said, I'm serious.
...

What is there in the end but forgiveness
And forgiving one's self.
What is regret when we cannot go back
To change anything done?
...

What have you done little grey wing

Flown the dark Atlantic to Cordoba
Heard the poetry of Lorca
...

Truth you see, when back into a crevice

Between stones, cannot be got, will not be out
Unless you wait- Oh you may poke it with a stick
...

A bullet shot at Muslim men
Jewish men rocking at the Wailing Wall
Palestinian van driven into working men-
...