Sweet naivety.
Unwritten recipes.
Orange kitchen on a dark afternoon.
Somewhere north, somewhere cold.
Somewhere I once called home.
Little socks on slippery floors.
Pots and pans.
Verses and chords.
Little band, little man,
waving a spatula sword
What magic
to make something of nothing.
What magic
to love and bring forth existence.
What magic
to be old and stale
and never eaten.
When I’m lost after dark,
find me by the oven light.
I’ll watch the flour grow.
If God ever asked me,
Would you be Atlas
hold the sky and clouds
soaked with tears
of humanity?

Would you bear a family’s grief
over their child you never knew
so they could be free?

I would say yes.

I would dwell in all nine rings of hell
not to earn heaven
but so no one burns again.

No heart would ever ache from a missing part.
No child would have to grow up in a night.

I’d keep the storm clouds at bay
except for those who love the rain,
and leave space for the sun to shine
on those who shiver.

And how much happier,
brighter, lighter
more beautiful this world would be
if I held up the sky,
for everyone
but me.
It is not the crosses I counted down the highway,
but the foliage that burned
orange, before the gray sky,
like a warm kitchen
sweetened by maple
on a Saturday morning.

It is a family's laughter in a new home
over old photographs
and Chinese takeout:
a Friday night well spent.

It is the scent hanging in the hall
on a student’s first day of school
and last—
the scent of a new beginning.

It is the first warm day of spring
and the first crisp wind of fall.
The first dance, light as a cloud
with the hope of flight.

It is the chilling Church choir, singing
at Christmas mass
Hallelujah, Oh Holy Night.

The sunlight woke me Sunday.
It is that sunlight, and, I believe
a rainbow in the early November
without a cloud in sight.

It is the hope in what we leave behind—
that my words will suffice and
survive.

It is this, all this,
and so much more.
It is all we know
and hope to find,
yet we can never define It.