"i wrote a little song for you
with a melody i'd borrowed put to words that didn't rhyme
to repeat what you already knew
as the stones thrown at your window tapped a syncopated time
you kept a distance out of fear you'd break
but what good's a single windchime, hanging quiet all alone?
the music our collisions would make
is a sound that turns the road-that-leads-us-back-home
into Home"

SF General Hospital

It's just another Monday, just another day of my internship. Until I talk with a man named Ernest, a Black man of about 35, who matter-of-factly tells me of terrible things, who just needs an ear for a few minutes, who just needs a prayer.

And this room is intense, too much--all the anger boiling over from the drama at the next bed, and Ernest, tender & gentle Ernest, praying for strength and for his family and for resources, like a continued room to go home to, like money to get his two young kids out of The System, and for the pain in his legs. He is dealing with partial paralysis, you see, because someone punched him in the neck on the streets.

After, in the hallway, I cry hard, too-loud tears. All the fucking injustice. More sincerity from a man who's had harder things than most probably ever will, a man who just accepts these hard things and tries to keep walking. I want to shake him--Don't you know it's not like this? The extent of your suffering is not reality! Don't you know?!

But his suffering is reality. And it is for the world over, despite my insanely-privileged, though not quite painless, infinitely-easier position. What's universal in the human experience? Suffering, it seems. And maybe a weird joy, or gratitude.

And I become psalmist, pleading, are You blind & are You deaf, to miss these heartfelt prayers?
or are You dreadful, to allow such things? How long until justice is like a river?


you say, "the hopelessness of living & the childishness of suicide!"
but there's a call to love my brother that can never be destroyed

Tanner Pehl beloved by his family

and now murder is real

From 185 to 120, but you were the first one to go since graduation almost 3 Junes ago. And oh, how my heart aches for our class, for 20 year-old you! Peace be you, Tanner. Rest in peace.

long lost brother [over the rhine]

I thought that we'd be
Further along by now
I can't remember how
We stumbled to this place

I wanna do better
I wanna try harder
I wanna believe
Down to the letter

Jesus and Mary
Can you carry us
Across this ocean
Into the arms of forgiveness

Trouble is I'm so exhausted
The plot, you see, I think I've lost it
I need the grace to find what can't be found...

my new Sierra heart

so much snow--6, 7 foot tall banks of white
on mirroring couches, friends draw close
yes, i'll have another glass, this gladdened heart.
in the mountains, you joyfully forget the old pace
you walk free and easy
each breath of thick winter air filling those forgotten spaces
in, out. you are alive.
welcome to the silence. to the shared journey.
welcome to the beauty & disaster
to that intimacy you've been begging for.

[the unspeaking center of her monologues]

There is too much to trust, these days. God can be so damn demanding. I just remembered I don't know anything ("Oh, right!"), and probably it is high time to move to Northern India and run from the scene that's so intense, that's weirding me out too much.

Does anyone know when 20 year-olds stop feeling like 12 year-olds? Or even 6 year-olds? Or do the feelings of being totally unprepared for and surprised by and overwhelmed with life never go away?