Keep the kid inside you free friends. You’ll need them by the end. Don’t get SO adult you forget the wonder and curiosity of being here. You can’t make art without that kid, or enjoy much of life. A falling colored leaf is a miracle, mine said to me today. The kid it’s knows to talk to trees and birds, and that you’re not weird for doing so.
The kid was just living inside or water and darkness and is excited about light and life all around it.
And if Jesus was right, you can’t even enter The spiritual Kingdom unless childlike. Tell your inner kid, he or she is ok today and welcome to come out and play with us all!
And as you must all know, art is the park, where kids come out to play!

The doves were mating in the loose gravel
Outside my hotel that night.
Promising me a 100 more days worth living
At least, I thought I heard them say…..

as our lifespans go…..

It was just after 911 glow
I had gotten my rental off the city bridge
And just drove north, until I felt safe enough to be.
I was hiding in a shack on a lake
Up in Pennsylvania
Trying to sort things out.

They were just mating, as doves do—loudly
With lots of fuss and dust. When I woke up…
A woman was teaching her son to swim in the small lake i found myself on. But,
I could not come out yet to get her name.

But her gentleness with her son-

the way she weighed his shoulders in her arms as he stroked in a messy duck’s stroke,

until he got more swan like and smooth-she waited for him to do so,

which was enough to know her.

My hands were shaky still
After being on that bridge that day-just yesterday…
And watching the dragon shaped smoke form above the towers
As they tumbled along with bodies and styrofoam coffee cups
And what was left, I saw the angels catching in mid air.

But that morning it was just the noisy doves mating
Making a dust bowl over and over again-as we all do.
I wanted to go to a church, but there were none nearby
I wanted to pray, but I was too nervy to speak well that day.
I still had my rental, and was meant to drive all the way to Denver
To deliver a word, as they say.
That day, but couldn’t bring myself to do it yet.
I had a silk red scarf in a wooden box, I wanted to deliver
To my fiancee. But I couldn’t drive that day.
When evening finally came, I went out alone and listen to water
Lapping slowly on rocky, gravely, broken Pennsylvanian banks.

Just then an owl swooped in, just to the right of my head….
Hunting I suppose, but with such presence and precision, I shuddered to think
Again, of all of this and that simultaneously occurring.
And me, sitting on some nameless lake, almost nowhere
But far enough away for a woman to teach her son to swim and pray.
And a boy like me to recover, slowly, more like a man does-
In Silence, that felt it lasted a 100 days or more.

And all along, the doves were mating…..

but few heard their dusty mating song.

How trees treat us:

I saw and touched a Tree I’ve known for years today-
Just back of our alley-
A single red cedar tree, I typically just walk by,
But have not often noticed carefully,
On my way to wherever, I must be going…
I placed my hands on her today for some time,
and then I hugged her awkwardly, until I heard her name.

I didn’t want to climb her, or use her, or split her up for lumber

or measure her limbs;

i just wanted to be with her, behold her. To know, as one knows

a person or fish or place, one listens to well, long enough to love….

I’m sure my neighbors thought I was insane.
I’m no hippie, or a tree hugger, but I love each by name
And have to touch to know.
“That’s a good day”, she whispered to me
By name.
And she was right.
I felt more myself afterwards.

Thanks, tree friend
For helping me slow down and ground again
In all the names around me daily, I simply,
And ignorantly, walk past.

Each of us must have a name, we thought
Together this evening-now that we know one another.
What a treat-the treasure of conversation
With a tree. How it slows us down enough to be.

The big broad backed tattoed texan man who sat in my alley alone tonight
Is not alone, no matter what has happened.
Neither is the wild yoga woman who walked barefoot
Beneath our trees today having forgotten her name.
And often asks me, where is your home.
I asked her twice the same, with no response.
These trees, I suppose, I offered her one day.
With him, I waited until he could recall what
He was doing here in this particular alley tonight
Before any questions.
Maybe they should meet, or not, I’m no match maker
but regardless
None of us are really alone. 
At the end of the day.
“We are children stumbling through a wasteland of beauty”
As someone must’ve already said by now.
And absolutely no one is truly alone.
There are no singles in the Kingdom.
And no one is ever forever nameless.
As has already been said.
The last thing the barefooted nameless woman said to me:
“The weather is nice, if you have a home.”
And then she disappeared into the trees.
This just before, the big man moved towards a bus stop
i presume. We’ll see what happens in the morning…….

My heart surgeon is out on furlough
I will nurse her myself until he returns
With firm hands of faith-enough
To resurrect the dead. I’m told.
When he returned, after I had held for weeks….
I hope to revive you into a type of awakening.
My surgeon whispered. Jesus is still real and we are still here
We are still here, my friend. He ended with.
I will always remember him by name.

Pretty moon tonight
You and I, this dark night
Beholding again together yet another sky
What was always here above us all in waiting.
But we didn’t see often or well enough
To know one another as the moon knows earth each night,
Or as a man knows a woman’s hand he’s touched for years in moonlight.

Pretty moon tonight
You and I, this dark night
Beholding again together yet another sky
What was always here above us all in waiting.
But we didn’t see often or well enough
To know one another as the moon knows earth each night,
Or as a man knows a woman’s hand he’s touched for years in moonlight.

Religion and comedy have been my life’s obsession—add art and I’m home.

I will one day in this life or the next write a religious joke book for angels, as I feel they get left out of the conversation. And I have always had a heart for the marginalized, or those living in the clouds in between!

My desire to write a joke book for the angels, has never dissipated. Humans are easy to make laugh (slapstick or easy puns), but get an angel laughing and then you have really good joke that could change the atmosphere.

I hope I’m a good joke for them.

(And of course, angels have no ethnicity, so ethnic jokes are out of the question, which does limit me).

Religion like politics isn’t funny, until you see it in a larger context. I think the angels will get the punch line.

But it must be delivered in Love.

For as a friend put it, “God always has a chuckle in His Throat”.

God is always about to tell a joke.

After chatting with a dear friend…
Alas, I must get back to the boring day—dog walks and bills,
Forms to fill out, sinks to fix, poop to clean up, plungers to buy…
But to talk to you ,took me outside of time for a moment or so…
So I could return refreshed and readied for billboards and circumstances
With a brighter glow about me, as I do the daily worship.
That chat, informed my talk and walk.

After chatting with a dear friend…
Alas, I must get back to the boring day—dog walks and bills,
Forms to fill out, sinks to fix, poop to clean up, plungers to buy…
But to talk to you ,took me outside of time for a moment or so…
So I could return refreshed and readied for billboards and circumstances
With a brighter glow about me, as I do the daily worship.
That chat, informed my talk and walk.