Just give us hope

( An inauguration poem )

Hope is what brings us here

From the time we asked the British to leave

The hope of a new nation beckoned on us

with alluring promises that we anchored on

We knew the journey will be hard

with friends, we have just met becoming brothers

and other strangers we did not remember inviting

filling the tent

Hope told us the tent was big enough

that the land was rich enough

that the rivers were full enough

Hope is what brings here again

Hope for the hope that the dream

will become true 

and we will slap our brothers back and not their cheeks

that we will distinguish the stranger from the friend

and the tent will truly be enough

Hope that our search for the promise

made when we chased the British away

and even before then when the bibles came and took our land

and restrained our hands from selling our brothers

for mirrors and guns

Hope is what brings us today again

We knew the journey will be hard

but not this hard,

We knew the race will be long

but not this long

Hope told us our generation will not die off

as we went around the desert in forty years, and then forty nights

and another forty years again

until we are now here

Hope is what you, all of you owe us

that our dreams will be less bloody

and our days be less dreary.

Just give us hope.

The little things that matter

Sometimes it’s the little things that matter

The sound of the leaf unfurling from the bud

Her ribs cracking as they straighten out and turn to face 

The new sun peeping out at dawn. 

The thoughts of the white speckled pigeon

Sitting on the ledge and pecking at her scales

Ruffling her wings to catch the lightest touch of the wind

The rhythm of soles 

Pattering on the walkway

Making a symphony of the weights they bear

The curling of the fingers

At the moment of ecstasy 

When nothing else matters

The slow and reluctant retreat of the night

Suddenly racing away as the shy sun picks up her courage. 

The mindless rise and crash

And rise again of the waves on the beach

And the little pebble brought to shore and taken back again and brought back again. 

The hungry bird pecking at the sacrifice left at the crossroads

For the gods who won’t eat. 

It’s the little things that matter

Little things are forgotten in their littleness

Overlooked in the chaos of living without the be-ing 

Until their absence signals our exit from the here and now. 

Unfinished

Unfinished is the title of the song 

whose rhythm we forever seek

The lyrics were written eons ago

In the rumbling of rocks that has not yet stopped

In the wind that still races around the globe 

race around these rocks

Chipping away bits here and then there

The lyrics are there in the letters of life 

strung together in the minute memory of our cells

To read and recreate and reform

 in the unfinished business of life

Unfinished is the war we fight 

to take the earth and its contents

And fight to take our life into our hands

ds to break the bondage of sin, man, and oppression

Unfinished is our quest for justice 

for those that have been shattered and squashed, 

run over and rolled over and forgotten 

Unfinished is our blood that runs hot 

at the excitement of words and calls to action, 

to rebel and to capture, to rebuild and to destroy again

Unfinished is the counting of the stars that stretch across the skies

 inviting us to look up and continue the count

Unfinished is our search for the beginning 

Unfinished is our search for the end. 

Unfinished is this poem.

Unfinished.