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.