I was sitting next to an Indian woman reading a red leather bound book who was chewing on her own tongue and occasionally clucking as if what she were reading was so obviously true everyone on the planet should read it. She adjusted her orangey-gold sari and refocused on the words on the page.

We didn’t say anything to each other as we sat on the bench outside the large stone blocks that made up Lowell City Hall and the Library.

“Don’t you have a job?” Che asked me outside the library.

The lady looked up, he shook his head at her and pointed at me.

I shrugged, “Not exactly.”

“Then what ‘exactly’ do you do?”

I paused, “I guess I watch.”

I scratched my head, “I watch and I think.”

I looked at Che’s face. He was confused. I licked my lips, “Sometimes, I talk, but mostly I watch and think.

“How do you afford to live in Lowell?” he asked.

I told him the truth, “I think ‘afford’ is a bit of a stretch, I get a bit of assistance and I live in subsidized housing.”

“And that’s what you do all day? You watch? You think? That’s it?”

“No,” I said, “I also listen. I listen and read.” I nodded toward the big gray stone face of the Pollard Memorial Library.

Che ran his left hand through his thick dark swoosh of hair, “Do you ever pray?”

I tilted my head to the left, “Pray?”

Che raised an eyebrow, “To God?”

“Which God?” I asked.

“I was just curious if you prayed to any God.”

The lady glanced up from her book and smirked, then looked back down.

“I’m not sure what a God would be. What does it mean? Sure, I’ve gone to church before, but I just don’t feel it. I don’t see the evidence of anything … anything more than this.” I made a face full of consternation and couldn’t find anywhere to empty it.

Che sighed, “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.”

The Indian lady smiled, “It’s not really all that complicated.”

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i saw the blond boy
in the skirt by the old city hall
laughing with his boyfriend

a wild ball of rage and love

alleluia, every little brown bird
flying off to find a perch
over the canal

domesticated tranquil disdain

a kiss, another kiss
the place where loneliness fades
into the cobblestones

brick by brick, faith built

amen, an edifice of hands
in hands reaching for each other
in the sun on the sidewalk

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we ran around the yard
with a net catching dragonflies
by the dozen and putting them in glass jars
twisted tightly closed

we played with them for hours
— well into the night
after they’d stopped moving
their wings.

in the morning, they were dead
— all of them — and we were
sad, but not sad enough to do it again.

how wind delivers spring seems a mystery
two chapters short — so I’m wondering
who did it and why and if they’ll be caught

a thousand years ago, kisses had no tongue
to speak the truth from out the unglossed lips
and yet, the wind still blew as cold and cruel

how sun watches spring return is a thriller
starting 10 chapters in — after the catalyst has died
and left us wondering why, what’s the motivation for THIS spring?

a thousand years ago, kisses were for lips
to touch lips with wanton promises and unglossed lies
and yet, the sun still burned as hot and painful

how wind bears winter away, it is a poem
without a title, and still I know
from whence comes the green and lush and perfect days ahead.

The world, for a moment anyways, is rather beautiful. The pall of death and dying seems almost  decorative as it covers the vibrant infinite variations of life and life to come.

I feel the presence of the turtle below my feet as I walk on the Earth and the Earth flows around the universe upon his back.

People are passing me this way and that. The city is alive with ignorance and the want of power — the power to change things, the power to be things, the power for power’s sake — and I’m glad to watch it pass.

I want nothing but to ask the turtle why he swims, why he carries us all, why no one is aware of him moving about the universe. I want to ask, but I choose silence instead.

The sky is gray, the air is raw, and I start to laugh. I realize, I’m just a silly story being told by a turtle to an irrelevant audience.

I look down at my hand and feet, accept that I’m still not a jellyfish and for a moment, I’m grateful.

The world is beautiful.

“Thank you,” I whisper to the turtle and no one hears.

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At the place where the waters divide,
I asked a squirrel , “What if this life
is just an endless loop?”

I repeated myself 3 times without response
from the squirrel.  Joylessly he ate something
like a nut. Spring is here but he found nothing
worthy of exaltation

I asked the squirrel, “Am I really every pain and every joy
and every thought  and every sigh—down to the everything
unspeakably small  and up to the unimaginably great
that I experience in my life?

The squirrel tilted his head, spat out some of whatever
was in his nasty little mouth and sped off along the water
toward a nameless faceless meaningless tree.

The feeling I’d had this conversation before started to sink in
so I chose between laughter and tears and went on with my day
hating that squirrel just a little bit more than loneliness.

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Che walked up behind me on Jackson Street outside the brickety face of the community health center, “Hey there.”

“Hey Che, how are you doing?”

As we walked he said, “I’m ok. The shock as has passed, I just feel … lost”

I nodded.

We paused by the little pedestrian bridge leading over the canal to the Appleton Mills apartments, “There are a million questions, it’s overwhelming. You just need to answer one of them and be ok with the answer. After that, everything will be ok.”

“You’re probably right,” He looked at me with his brown eyes pleading for me to do the work of finding meaning in his grief and loss, but I couldn’t do it. Maybe I could but I just wouldn’t.

I started to shrug and thought better of it, “What do are you going to do?”

“There’s no services, he’s already been cremated. I”m not sure there’s much else to do. In fact, I’m not sure there’s anything I want to do.”

Che’s vagueness left me curious as to whether he meant there was nothing he wanted to do about his brother, or about everything else in life.

After a few minutes talking about the weather and tonight’s ball game, we both had to go.

Well, I guess he had to go, I know I just wanted to.

I watched him adjust his black jacket and keep on down the sidewalk wherever he was going.

Then he was gone.

Then I was gone.

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In the long park divided by the Merrimack Canal
I sit on a bench watching high school students
dream of some perfect life ahead
and the water smoothing past without a sound
unaware of the turbine and the turbulence to come.

The pigeons seem predisposed not to matter
but there is one mangy seagull circling effortlessly
trying to entice me into some meaningful conversation.
I’ll have none of that.
A young lady in purple jeans and a black t-shirt cackles
as she passes by me with 11 of her closest friends.
She caws to the seagull and he flies away.

The dark water continues toward the Boott
the students toward the many treats downtown,
and my thoughts toward the conclusion
childhood is never really over.
The seagull ruffles back down from the heavens
and I laugh.

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the noses of strangers are stranger than strangers
in the abstract — in the concrete they make indentations
when it’s still unset, but then it hardens and the noses break
on contact with the concrete. the eyes are separated
by the bridge, and the nostrils pulsate with unconscious breath

the noses of friends are strange too, but not so strange
because they are missed,  an abstract notion of identity
imperceptible in the seeing until they are so seen
they are completely invisible — like love

another nose, another person, strange, familiar
the distance between the eyes warps and distorts
in the seeing — in the unseeing — in the wondering
who is this person? what do they know?

the last snow is melting
over your grave
you’ve been there long enough
to grow cold — but not so cold
as my heart without you

tomorrow, it will rain again
i want to take you from the earth
dry you off, bring life back to you
let you bring life back to me

but i know you belong to the  warm embrace
of earth and what comes next for beautiful creatures