In Storage

"She's come home from the city"
They think and nod their sleepy-town heads.

Between houses with my family,
We hang our hats with my dusty-violet grandma,
Resting our young-kid chaos
Into her lonely, still solitude.

I know this is the place I sprouted,
The place I learned reading, love and distrust,
But I find that my feet can't reach the ground.
They refuse to be planted.

So, here the five of us wait
For the green light
For the great thumbs-up
For the yellow-brick road to light up
And lead us to where we are meant to be.
You can only go forward
To home.

By the River

We talked of the terrain of countries to where we'd been
While the children dug their toes in the mud.
The river flowed faster tonight
After thunder ripped through the air.
My mind filled with Nevada desert at night
The sky so pierced with light
I could feel my soul rise to meet it.
The air so clean, like breathing holiness.
I long for the pause of different places,
Where the terrain takes my hand and points:
"Look! Do you see?"

I travel this unfathomable earth.
I wander and take my love with me.
Love follows me around like a unwound yoyo,
Jolting and leaping over the stones on the ground.
It gathers moss, yet carries me.
My eyes fill with words and I, too,
Feel them galloping across the field toward me.
I will race with the wind.
I will challenge that river.
Skipping rocks off the surface,
I will write of the water's secrets.

Long ago, in a galaxy...

I believe in the force.
I believe in black-and-white.
Humans revel in the solid line
While needing the freedom
To make their own smudges.
It comes as little surprise
That more than 57,000 New Zealanders
List their religion as that of Jedi.
I have two padowans of my own
And one princess.
As I sit in this parking lot,
Composing these thoughts,
A man has put a sun shield in his car window.
Life is full of irony and
full of the forces of good and evil.
That sun shield is screened with the faces
Of one wookie, Carrie (buns intact),
Sir Alec and Han Solo, himself.
I know the force is real.