As rain on the window leaves echoes in the ear's curvature, sometimes rememberance of past lives rises in the clear water of my laughter, like a stain of rust that can't be washed from a work shirt, or like a thread of black filings moving under water like a fish's tail.

Suffering remains then, I suppose, this way sunk in love, even after love. So patience then, when from your mouth I seek the consolation to turn it again into beauty like this rain on the window.

Religion is what an individual does with his own solitariness ~ A. N. Whitehead

Peavine creek. A culvert next to A busy road and me, A solitary man who is sitting on it As I watch water that comes from under me And breaks against a mossy boulder.

My legs dangle down into space, Into which thoughts of you Seem to come and go constantly now.

After a while of sitting so, I stand up And walk away feeling like a man Who had experienced a sudden communion With some unknown and unknowable mystery.

How we begged for those discarded worn out Tires to be bestowed upon us, the black steeds For scrawny knights, a stout twig both the sword And the whip to keep the bicycle hoop rolling Over unpaved roads and empty lots, bare feet churning Behind them through all seasons; summer dust or Monsoon mud was all alike to us, the country bordered With rice paddies and by mango orchards needed vigilant Patrol by us tykes, as we sent up smoke signals from Bonfires or invented secret codes and swore blood oaths. There was mighty yelling in the wind we raced for speed, Before time overtook us all, and scattered us here and there.