HAVE NO FEAR, FOR LOVE IS ALL AROUND YOU

Have no fear, for love is all around you.
All come helpless from a common womb.
Perhaps you do not know that love surrounds you.
Perhaps you do not know that you're in bloom.
Yet mothers, too, are children, ever loved,
Minded by the living and the dead,
Old enough to give, as time has proved,
The need no less, though time and tears have fled.
Have faith that love's a mystic tide that flows
Equally to and from the heart,
Returning, turning as it comes and goes,
'Mid moon and moon your sea, your song, your art.
Sing, then, of this moment of your giving,
Deep within the ebb and flow of living.
All you feel is what was felt for you,
Yearning your own yearning will renew.

EVENTUALLY, THE UNDEPARTED DEAD

Eventually, the undeparted dead,
Alive without, long since gone within,
Shall arise to feel both love and pain.
There are no dead that cannot live again.
Even those long buried shall begin
Rising up towards tears and rage and need.

I NEVER WANTED TO INVADE

I never wanted to invade
The forest of a friend.
I never meant to plant myself
Beyond where I might end.

But there it was--I wandered in--
And seized a wild field,
And turned its berries into corn,
And took what it would yield.

Years later, we would often walk
Out to the boundary line,
And picnic where the fence once stood
That marked off what was mine.

PASSOVER SEDERS ARE LIKE THE NIGHT SKY

Passover Seders are like the night sky:
A moment of moments long past and just gone;
Starlight years old next to planets nearby
Shining as though joined in one joyous song.
Over our heads is a book of the ages
Vividly chanting the stories of old,
Even as under our fingers are pages
Resplendent with light come from cauldrons now cold.
So may we gaze at the past in the present,
Each prayer a jewel in a darkness undone,

Destined to light on our eyes in a moment
Embracing all slaves out from Egypt as one.
Rejoice, then, in this living graveyard of light,
Singing the words, that they last one more night.

I KNOW HOW DIFFICULT I'VE MADE YOUR LIFE

I know how difficult I've made your life
Now that you've brought home another father.
You have your new dominion as a wife
While I still mourn the absence of the other.
And yet I recognize your right to choose
The man you love, whatever I might feel.
Life is not a game to win or lose:
For that the pain on both sides is too real.
It therefore is my place to make a place
Within my heart for one who lives in yours.
There is no way to do this but with grace,
For one must be at home with open doors.
Please forgive the failure of my love.
Your love for me should mine for your love move.

DEATH CAME TO ME WHILE I WAS AT A MEETING

Death came to me while I was at a meeting,
Opened up my chest and wandered in.
Nor did it leave until a few days later,
Satisfied it need not come again.
It was a death both unforeseen and fitting,
Living as I did for what I did,
Being one averse to merely being,
Engaged in service to the world I would.
Remember me, then, as I was when death
Made its sudden entrance to my heart:
Attentive in my seat, my wife beside me,
Night come, the meeting just about to start.

MOMMY, PLEASE DON'T WORRY

Mommy, please don't worry 'cause
I'm doing really well,
Even though I miss you on
This Happy Mother's Day!

Wishing you were with me 'cause
In that case I could tell
You all the things that happened to me
While you were away.

I love you even though you can't
Be with me just for now.
And I know you love me, too,
'Cause I'm your little child.

And I'm sure that you will come
To me someday, somehow,
And I will see you look at me
And know that you have smiled.