Together

This is the sacrament of being together

in our shared time.  This is it. This is real.

Nothing extraneous, no barriers.

Nothing craved and nothing missing.

    

      Just water, sky and land

      and how the world lifts birds

      to flight. Just soil and rain reviving

      a parched earthworm and tending

      all the dropped seeds, all the daylight words

      I hold for you right here in my workaday hands,

      no worries or blame to intrude,

    

only the remarkable grace of two beings leaning

into each other like this.  We smile and take

a slow breath, knowing that we recognize

a sacrament when we’re in it.

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2024

GIVING THANKS

The old dog is snoring like an oboe.  We have so much

comfort, so much gratitude.  But a large piece of wind

plays me the anguish of people like long-distance calls,

 

extinguished in a midnight vigil where no moon rises,

where daylight is an infinity away.  Maybe hope rests,

tingling, in a different neighborhood, one of unknown

 

zip code. It’s harsh, isn’t it, to keep war’s terrible face

in mind as we share a magnificent meal of plenty

and grace as all the suffering in the world clamors below

 

every forkful in our home.  The sleeping dog

moans.  If I were a person of shallow religion I might quote

unfounded platitudes here about “working in mysterious

 

ways” or “everything happens for a reason”

as videos are blurred so all of us screen-watchers

drift past the horrors like a susurration of so many starlings.

 

Can we grasp the entire picture? This is how we have to do it

in America, with mouths full of unblinking compassion.

With holes in our collective stockings of serving ourselves first.

With hearts the size of suffering nations holding onto every

beat toward peace.

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023

 

Amphibian

I want to love like an

amphibian      drinking you   

through my pores like gleaning oxygen

from water

precious and divine

 

I want to love with my

entire being      my mind tasting

the rare wit of your life story

my gut recognizing your bright

wise everything-goodness

 

I want to love like the making

of spring      receiving the miracle

of your truest self right into the grace

of my secret salamander skin

 

Look, it is raining love

right now

 

J. Pratt-Walter, © 2023