What I Know Now

I found a hole in my shirt today --
A piece of me fell out and blew away.

The Truth We Tell

A room stacked with gods --
The worshipper tying knots
To keep her heart cold.

Pieces of What I Wrote Afterward

Sitting here,
Screaming with the silence,
Holding onto hunger...

Writing words...
Thinking that You, unlike me,
Understand me better written down,
Like it changes what I mean...

Asking questions,
Telling lies just to see if You'll catch them,
To find out if You know...

If I'm here
Because I want to be here,
Because what I said I wanted
Isn't what I want at all,
Then I'll keep writing and keep on leaving.
But if I'm here because I'm almost there,
Then take away my pen.
I need to hear You say my name.


Baby, even angels cry.

Souls Be Not Silent

I once knew a starving man. He was well-fed, healthy, and strong, and still he starved. Not for leanness, but for swelling. Not for meat, but for his own words behind his lips.

When I had seen too much of the hunger in his eyes, I dared to ask him why he did not speak. "Save yourself," I begged. "We are listening."

"I dare not speak," he said. "Like your stifled tears, the first word would be too much. I am afraid I should never be able to stop."

"Then I will trade my tears for your speaking," I replied.

The two were well matched.

The Way We Go

In the end we see the stars.
In the end we hear the words.
In the beginning we hear the music, and love the sound.
We are far away, and cannot hear the words.

But at the start it is enough.
We do not need words. We just listen.
We shape our steps and train our ears,
and we move on. Things take shape.
We are closer.

The dance begins. Each one to his own.
We begin to live what we have heard.
Then I find that you have heard what I have heard,
and we dance together, moving on
to hear deeper with four ears,
to see farther with four eyes.
We are closer.

We begin to hear the words.
There are words? We had forgotten there were words.
With the words we see.
What we thought was listening becomes dancing.
What we thought was dancing becomes looking.
We must be close to the player himself.
Surely we are close.

Then we are all together -- this world of listeners,
hearing to see and seeing to dance,
caught up in the wonder of the multitude,
this crowd of people who have come to listen.
We begin to hear what others hear,
to tell what we have seen.
We show ourselves. Holding hands,
we walk among the lines, reaching out, staying close.

In the end we see the stars.
In the end we hear the words and find out
we had learned them all before we heard the song.
It took the music and the dancing
to tell us what was in us,
to make us what is more,
to give us strength to hear the words and go on dancing.

In the end the player puts down his music
and listens.