happy new year…

This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

– Walt Whitman –

balances…

In life
one is always
balancing

like we juggle our mothers
against our fathers

or one teacher
against another
(only to balance our grade average)

3 grains of salt
to one ounce truth

our sweet black essence
or the funky honkies down the street

and lately I’ve begun wondering
if you’re trying to tell me something

we used to talk all night
and do things alone together

and I’ve begun

(as a reaction to a feeling)
to balance
the pleasure of loneliness
against the pain
of loving you

stumbling is not falling…

reach deep
through the muck of time
sing
proclaim the past your friend
the present your lover
eat what is to come until you are full
change the lightbulb
not for what your next step might be
but for the room you have just entered
see the marvel that is space-to-be-filled

space to be filled