There it was
in the middle of
the sidewalk-

a broken jar,
once full of
marbles,

a beaded necklace
unstrung,

a camera commercial,
a comedy routine,
a thousand little points of light,

still in this
November sun,

and I was there alone,
like Paris, like San Francisco,
like Rome, like New York,
working up the courage to say
it was beautiful.

A Thanksgiving Poem 2010

I came to the beach for Thanksgiving.
My family, a small band of nomads,
brought popcorn and pop-tarts and
homemade gravy and we sat, as we always do,

and watched the youngest children rise and spin
and tremble through adolescence.

I came to the beach for Thanksgiving
because in the quiet hours I could
sneak down to the sandy shore and
scribble these half-written words,

pulling small pieces of bread out of my pockets
and hoping the small bird of a poem would come.

I cam to the beach for Thanksgiving
because it is immeasurable, and I,
artificially large, needed to remember
that I am thankful.

I am, once again, drawn into its vastness,
how its rolling waves are a watery canopy,
how beneath, there sleeps a still unconquered dragon.

I do not think we are nervous about the
ocean's great depths or wide stretch.
I don't think we are deceived into believing
its myths will wake and overcome us.

I think we are afraid, rightfully afraid,
at how something can still be so un-owned.

Brushy Creek Ranch

It is a breakable November,
and the sun is a stage light
or an ornament, both hung on
the eastern wall of this
cloudless Texas sky.

The birds that are all sewn
together in a small book to my
left are as much an
orchestra as they are
the soundtrack to this
camera-less film.

And there are men filling
the beds and floors and couches
of this ranch style labyrinth,
but they are asleep and
not aware of the jittery butterflies
or the heavy dragonfly.

And I am a prince here,
my castle filled with
mossy chandeliers,

as we are all princes
in these open air banquet halls
of Our Most Benevolent King.