All the world was mine.

How strange
That I might feel at home
In a stranger's arms,
And yet I was.

How lovely,
That he might sit at my table
And talk with me,
As friends,
And let me babble incessantly.

I'll not let go
of the hesitant "may I?" with a hand on an empty chair,
of the "thank you," pressed to an ear.

I will dance out the door
and into the arms of sleep.

I'm chipping off little pieces
of me
and planting them about.

I've had to throttle
the life
out of those that became weeds.

I may have cried
over seeds
that never grew.

And yet I hold in my hands---

a bundle of paper,
secured by twine,
with stamps all the colors of the rainbow--

a cup of tea-
and once, only once
coffee-
warmed by another's toil--

a shirt purchased
somewhere I've never been-
pressed into my grasp
with a smile so excited-
that suits me as if it had been made for me---

the fruit of a garden well-tended

It is difficult
to practice French
when under the influence
of a half-consumed whiskey-and-coke
when the burbon-and-coke
abandoned by your mother
is also now your responsibility to consume.

there's a grammar mistake their somewhere.
I'll fix it when I'm hungover.
maybe.

He is leaving fur
(and sometimes even whiskers)
scattered about the house
as he settles in,
curling and purring
around our limbs
and hearts.

He is leaving chirps
echoing in his wake
as he races to the dinner bowl.

What an adorable cat.

Codeswitching

I can parler
en deux langues
mais tu m'a dit
"no."
Je peux choisir
my life,
my tongue,
my turns of phrase,
but you told me
"stop."
Why?
Pourquoi voulez-vous
me to chose only one?
Pourquoi voulez-vous
m'en prisonner?
Je peux choisir
la melodie de ma vie,
the song with which
I sing.
And this changing of tunes
dans le milieu des phrases,
ce n'est pas parce que je suis unsure;
it's because des propres mots
sont dans un autre langue,
in different song.

As My Mother Requested III

He is a musician,
and perhaps a journeyman
in his craft.

And the sight of him
fills me
with some distasteful mix
of rage and disappointment,
and I cannot refuse
that bitter drink.

Perhaps I could stand this
if I cared to practice,
cared to set aside those thoughts
and replace them with ones
more charitable
and more akin
to the thoughts of those around me.

But I do not care to-
perhaps that is a sin.

Perhaps the mangling
of ancient and treasured hymns
is a worse one.

As My Mother Requested II

I cannot stand the musician
because I value history,
because I value
and adore
the ability to connect to the past,
singing to tunes
words familiar
to saints long gone.

He keeps the words the same,
sure as much as I can tell,
but it feels like
he is celebrating his own creativity
as he turns the simple tunes
into melodies more complex
that lose the congregation
as multiple guitars
and drums
play along to something I don't recognize.

He drowns out
his own vocal partners.
How am I supposed to match him
when the girl next to him can't?

An organ master
knows to play softly as the flock sings,
even though
such a mighty instrument
can fill an chapel without trying.
They leave room in the air
for the voices of the lost-now-found
to feel welcome to sing along.

If you like,
tell me how to look at this differently.
Tell me how to see
these changing of the hymns-
in order to fit the fads of today's music-
as something good,
as I know I could see it
as the re-adaption,
re-interpretation,
of old things in new ways
building on the creativity of the past
with the creativity of now.

But I don't know
how to connect the feel of a concert
with the reverence I feel due to worship.