haiku//april

one (i go to prepare a place for you)

in your garden of 
rooms, i hope there are windchimes
that will remind me 

of the porch. in this 
garden you’re growing inside
my body, i hope 

there are grass clippings, 
and a blooming lilac bush
smelling of summer. 

two

can i watch while your
body is broken for me, 
without recoiling? 

can i weep with the 
women who stayed, and eat of 
your flesh, like you asked? 

your body crunches
between my teeth. your body 
broken; mine made whole. 

three (nicodemus)

it doesn’t make sense,
this person you said you were, 
this cup you offered, 

this pain welling up, 
inside my stomach, like bile 
from drinking your blood. 

I stand outside the 
tomb you’re dead in, hoping it’s 
not too late to change. 

four (paradox)

you are a god of 
yes/and, heavy/light, sturdy/
soft, boldest quiet/

quietest bold. of 
death/risen, of tell/secret, 
safest mystery. 

six

today we are all 
a little sad in the cold
springtime; we miss the 

old kind, the days when
smiles were easy to come
by, those happy times.

the forsythia 
blazes like Moses’ bush,
and you speak from it.

you ask me to trust, 
to see the holy ground that
even now, holds me! 

seven (ode to vaccines)

thank you for deltoids
that house the mRNA
that are now having

a field day in me, 
for sweat glands, receptor cells
and the tiny hairs

in my nose making 
me sneeze, for the pain that is, 
now, making me well. 

nine (to mary oliver)

did you know that we’d
need to hear the same poem
again and again

before we grasped it? 
is that why you listened to 
the wren each morning? 

ten (the psalmist)

asaph says, “but as
for me,” like he is saying,
“listen, god, listen," 

like staring up at 
the stars, saying, “I know you made 
these, but as for me—”

eleven (you can have more than one feeling at a time)

god, i am tired
of angry men! “but listen,” 
she says, “there is still 

work to be done! see
how your plant grows, even though 
it’s small and fragile?” 

the kingdom is, now,
inside of you, even as 
you cry out, “how long?” 

twelve

we think we can shove
our way into saving the 
temple—if we press

hard enough, the walls
won’t fall down in the earthquake. 
but you keep steady

our pillars, and we 
are the dew, while you are the 
spring rain. we are the 

clouds while you are the 
dawn, whispering, “mercy not 
sacrifice. watch me.” 

thirteen

my heart lays spread out 
like puzzle pieces waiting
to be made sense of.

like a maze they twist, 
boxed up tight and handed on 
over, just like that. 

fifteen

when i have no words
left, you lay here with me, just
quiet, just resting 

sixteen

i let my feet sway, 
dangling off the edge of the 
cliff, thinking of you 

seventeen (easy loving)

there is the way the 
sun glints off the roof, and leaves
stretch out of the ends

of the branches, the
way the wind moves in her 
easy, loping gait,

the way she gently, 
woke me from my sleep, there is 
the way you love me. 

eighteen (hosea 8)

we sowed the wind, gusts 
we shoved in the unwilling
earth, and it’s sprouted

into a tempest,
a tumultuous rainstorm,
a field of whirlwinds. 

we cry “how long,” but 
we planted injustice, so 
what did we expect? 

nineteen (psalm 81)

I will build a nest
with earthy wonders. I will 
cover you with my 

wings. I will raise up 
a song under the full moon. 
I will love you with 

a language I made 
for you. Open your mouth wide 
and I will fill it. 

twenty (george floyd)

“give justice,” he writes
and “give justice” we echo on 
posters, screens and streets 

the verdict both a 
relief and not enough; too
little, too late and 

what of the others? 
adam toledo was as 
young as my brother

so may this be the
first of many yes-es we give 
when asked to listen. 

twenty-two

I am carried not
by my own will but by my 
small throng of kind friends 

twenty-six

the locusts have not 
eaten every last bit of
gladness; there is still

some left—look at the 
way the sun hits the lemon
tree! look at that! look! 

twenty-seven

a great chorus of 
tiny birds, each voice different 
from the other sings! 

joy-filled, unafraid,
proclaiming the beauty of 
the morning, this life! 

twenty-eight

is anything so 
lovely as the morning, just 
waking up, singing? 

as if the world is 
crying the message of hope, 
see how we open

our eyes, come alive
every day, renewed, restored
and resurrected? 

twenty-nine

I don’t have the words
to pray but thank God you hear
my heart, anyway. 

thirty

here is my heart, sealed
in an envelope and on 
it’s way to you, see?