Fe: A Jeremiad

Where is

the iron pillar
defending those who make
needed societal denunciations (Jeremiah 1:18)?

the iron rod
for guiding the lost, as the word of God, through the mists of darkness (1 Nephi 8:24; 11:25),
for ruling the nations (Revelation 19:15)?

Where is that missing element
so key to strengthening and stabilizing
the periodically turning tables
of our atomizing culture?

Has it been too much alloyed
or clouded by some ignoble gas?

Has it not Fe-
elings enough

to give this fainting nation's
blood its smell and color back?

to give its spinning compass
a point?

to imbue its morally diaspora-ed people
with magnetoreception enough
to find its way home?


They don't even see
the destruction ahead.

And isn't that dramatically iron-
ic.

Phonewich

It was a spur of the moment word
she uttered
when describing what she did
to rectify the dreaded
phone-fell-in-the-toilet
incident.

"There was no rice,"
she explained,
"so I put 2 pieces of bread on top
and 2 pieces on bottom
and sealed it in a ziploc."

I googled this seemingly freshly minted
coin of the English language
to see if it had already been uttered,
(as I so often find with words
I thought should be proprietarily mine,
like "infinition" or "thith").

All I found were people foruming about phones,
writing "wich" instead of "which" afterwards,
like "im looking for a phone wich has a keyboard"

as well as this picture:

Picture source here.

Given that Google couldn't prove
anyone else had concocted
this delicious compound word
which so perfectly evokes a common
21st century American intersection
of technology, tragedy, and DIY folk wisdom,
I told her to copyright it.

She said she had gone to snapchat it,
but her phone was in a bag.

Familysick

My dad is the only one home tonight,

yet on the Google Hangout

between some of my 6 siblings 

- spread from Wyoming to the Carolinas -

and him,

he reports a pang of homesickness.

Isn't that what all of us should feel for where he is?

And he should be feeling "homewell"?

Instantly, I feel it, too: not so much a longing for home,

(indeed, I'd travel far to feel it)

but rather a yearning for

inside jokes,

comfort built of an inability to maintain pretense,

argument-mates who'll still be around tomorrow,

conversationalists conversant with certain topics of interest and geekiness,

and other ineffable qualities

that all mean just a fraction of what family is 

to me.

That is why I am family-sick, 

which seems weird to say,

having a family of my own that is upstairs as we speak,

but sometimes don't you adults just wonder what it would be like

if all your early-years family were under the same roof again?

Perhaps it would get ugly at times - I'm sure it would - 

but you still wonder, 

or,

at least,

I do. 

I Cannot Let this Week Pass

I cannot let this week pass
without taking the time to...

do whatever it is one does
to write a poem:

concoct or conjure,

mine and refine,

reflect but also refract.

Whichever it is
- or the sum of them all -

I need to do it.

Clamps and Poems

For my birthday,
my wood-working,
poetry-loving
dad
gave me
clamps
and a book of poetry.

I can't say which has been
more proficient
at holding things together.

Poetry is a Rock

I find myself,
on this Monday morning,
thinking about rocks and sand

because there's way too much going on.

And as I consider what to plan to do first
at each time
on each day

I realize that writing this poem
is a rock.

That's why I'm placing it firmly
on my calendar
every Monday morning -
to give a bit of sanity and peace
at the outset of what will inevitably be
a crazy week.

Will routinizing poetry writing make it
worse?

Maybe.

But, I suppose it'll still be better
than not writing any at all.

Hopefully.

Mowing with Mankind

As I mow this sprawling lawn
I feel a resonance with generations
of mankind before,
sent to tend and tame this garden.

As if I, too, am one with
the pioneers,
the pilgrims,
yea, all the progenitors
who took a blade in hand
to provide a shave and a haircut,
as it were,
to a sometimes 2-bit spot of earth
in an attempt to obtain a yield of useful fruit
through the wielding of assorted tools,

an attempt, sometimes, as vain as mine
usually is to stay a step ahead
of nature's processes
and my own nature's tendancy
to be persuaded more by the
length of my yawn
than the growth of my lawn.