Life Lessons

There are many lessons learned in life

But few come from tragedy—I know, I know

 

What makes you stronger and all that.  Rot

I say

 

You learn more from what makes you laugh

How much pleasure the tongue can bring and where it was placed

 

The sweet look on your lover’s face.  Or how loud P FUNK

Could be on stage and off   NOT JUST KNEEDEEP

 

The towers falling; a man shot in the back

All terrible, but: What can you do about that?

 

What can you make of a world so wedded to injustice?

How dare you name the oppressor and demand his head,

 

His badge, his ranch or those secret accounts in the Maldives?

It is not as if the struggle is useless, it is that it continues.

 

But joy, where is it?  What does it look like, smell like—bergamot

Lemons, honey, roses, musk?

 

To find it, is to explore a path where the stumbles are many

The curses frequent, but the rewards

 

forthcoming in A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems (White Pine Press)