They could have sailed stayed far away for good
fruit season picking, her parents happier hearing
of a match with post card swipe . perch name display.
Instead he caved . recessed each day sand bush
canals encroaching . road ways too narrow, heart wild
no! turns . dust swallowing cart and camels in distress.
His suits hung out for ties, impress off shore pending :
What nibbled at his core? School yard leaks that
dribbled down his village leg . the hurt, that city surge
men jeered his tail wind stall.
Mate mandate would rear up red blue take until one
night long unfulfilled ̶ sick dissembling, sick of sponging
off tuck! hold! faith healing ̶ so unrelieved! the floor smooth
knees now parting for any old new normal miracle stream.
Straighten my fork bend . so dreams form matter, she bares,
right to rend bridling our feast.
Breach in, breath out ̶ how our trails
blaze! ̶ the air trust up strip whoosh . curves off
the lamb's tale carving arcs, heaven 'n' earth, her east.
-W.W.
EULOGY FOR JODY PRINZ
The Light out of which she emerged lit her path
of pain which was hers only, while bearing
all of ours. Light was her whispering herald,
her faithful dog, her silver cloud never
directly above her, though always within,
hazed and more than misted, always dying
to burst, always reaching out across the dark
space between two people like an angel's
wings not knowing quite how to fold in either
embrace or resignation ̶ just as she,
by choosing to keep on breathing, could never
fully surrender to the heavy pull
of pain she bore so lightly, as an angel
might absorb a tugging kite's insistence
̶ as though, were it not for her anchoring grace,
the kite at any moment could pull her
soul upward, away to other focuses
of starcloud ̶ as indeed it at last did,
though not in any way we could have foreseen,
since all we may predict of the kite is
that at last it makes us all drift out of the cloud
of breathing in which we float and back
into the Light that yet keeps serving us breath.
(from "Within The Wind" © by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 