The Trinket Heart

Poem in response to Esperanza Gama's painting
"Los Milagros Rojos de Antonieta"










What trinkets do we attach,
like trinkets to the walls of crumbling churches
asking for blessings, and healings, and cures,
to the heart of our lover?

Will we ask them to cradle our heart?
Such a fragile thing in the hands of another.
Will we ask them to accept our faith and hopes and dreams?
On bended knee we plead to have some of our self in this union.

What part of our self will be taken or rejected?
Will you take this hand
and not the whole of me?
Will I be fractured and left to pour out of church windows?

Her eye gazes,
searches for the answers.
Crowned by virtue and virginity,
she looks out peering into the heart of another.
Drawing us into a ceremony of desire,
but not hers.

Two separate canvases painted
with fire and darkness.
A duel between my heart and
Family, Tradition, trinkets of Culture.
I long for you
to let me go.

Mother's Day

You’re quick to the step
and the smile.
You are there for her missteps
and her laughter.
A connection of love
And hope
And life.

Your gift is the sparkle
Of blue eyes
The shine of sun
Off blonde hair.
The giggle
And the snuggle.

You are her mother
My friend and love.
You are fierce protector
Of future
And worlds
And family.

That touch,
Such a spark of contact.
That cry,
Startling and reassuring.
Grounding you in the role
Of mother.




Just a poem for my wife on this Mother’s day. We have such an amazing life and love. Such an amazing daughter. The transformation of wife to mother is a dazzling spectacle. Becoming a parent is life changing, by definition and cliché. But to be there, for every minute, during this transformative process and to watch her grow into this role of mother has in turn changed me. I can think of no other true and pure example of the goodness of humankind than that of a mother with her babe in her arms and gaze. Even love is tainted by jealousy, envy, and the others. But their love, that purity and infallible strength, sets right the horrors of man.

The Patchwork Quilt of Place

Patchwork Quilt of Place

I am taken back to home.
Western Kansas fields struggling to grow
The fruits of man.
Scorched, exposed earth
And circles of irrigation.

There is conflict here.
Something is out of place here.
Laid on top of the other
Gaining ground here and losing ground there.

How was I out of place at home?
Fragmented identity struggling to belong
To this place.
Part of me discarded to take on the piece of another.

I decided to use this poem as the first entry for my blog. I chose this because I think it gives you a sense of who I might be. I did grow up in a small town in central Kansas. When I think about who I am as a person, I realize this geography has had a profound influence on me. To this day, I still have the dust of those dry fields on my skin.

Growing up there was idyllic. Life was simple to understand. You went to school and tried your best, because that is what was expected of you. You played outside until dinner, and then played outside until the streetlights came on. You explored pastures and deserted buildings. Kicked around in dry creek beds and made rafts for summer rain-swollen rivers. What held me (us) together was this fabric of certainty. You established your place in town by your family name, your friends in the neighborhood and at school, and what you did with your life. Nobody really cared much about it except those that really cared about you.

The imperfection in this perfect place, the rip in the seams, came to the forefront when I attempted to leave it. The pattern of my quilt did not match that of the “real” world. In fact, it was so drastically different that I lost all sense of recognition. I became lost in the world. The foundation I had built my identity on was fragile and worn by time. I was a grown man clinging to a blanky.

Eventually, as most young people do, I found myself and grew from the experiences. Now that I have left that place, and have been gone for almost as long as I was there, I see this place as a strength. It is not just a place, a house. It is a home that gives me perspective and guidance. And while the rips are still there--poverty, alcoholism, domestic abuse—and the idea of it being utopian is fantastical, the fields still produce and I reap the harvest.