Other Poems
A Letter From my DadI found it in my suitcase
folded in half in a small pocket, pressed from the weight of the bag or of your heart, I could never be sure. It was written in your best cursive on a piece of torn paper. I could tell that your thoughts were not only for me but also for you. You wrote, “One thing I figured out is that we take a little part of everyone we meet.” I think that’s what I needed, 2,000 miles from a hole in the ground, a barely-adult body being lowered, and me sitting on a floor alone. But at that moment, I wished I was small, in the back seat of our car, where days were as sure as the rhythmic warmth of the sun through the slits of the trees, where cars always passed with just enough room to spare, where metal never collided with nature, where people always stayed between the yellow lines. Right at that moment, I wished that you didn’t need to write that letter. |
On BioluminescenceThere's a place on earth that
makes you believe that your very touch can light an ocean. And maybe that’s true. Maybe that body of water is the truest thing on earth; a reflection of all you can be, all the difference you can make, all the light you can bring. Maybe that light is the light of a higher being extending his finger right back towards yours, igniting the fire in your veins. Maybe those lights are all of the shooting stars that fell from the sky, sitting still in the water and glowing only when an audience reveals itself. Maybe that water holds something beyond us, something spectacular and indescribable, eternally full of mystery and wonder. But they tell me none of that is true. It is religion or it is science, but it cannot be both. So I'll stand on the shore, light kissing my toes, and I'll feel which way the current pulls. |