Pudgy Indian

And the flowers are calling me
to write poetry about them,
Yellow petals
and cups to collect the rain and Love
Bugs and bees flying around pollinating
The colors...
OH the colors!

But there is a war going on
here on my blog
in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran...
Here I am safe
and must do what I can.

And there are yellow blossoms of Daffodils
purple blossoms of crocus that poke through the earth
flowering trees lining the streets
in pink and purple and white and yellow.

In the Sunday paper
a headline reads of a man named RJ Anheier,
once homeless then successfully housed for 8 years
falling dead on the streets of Portland
and being disected by OHSU
even though he has ID in his pockets
and his birth certificate
this classist society
considered him unworthy
as he looked homeless enough
to sell for $37.50
though he was greatly Loved
by folks like Sisters of the Road.

My sweetie and I Love
with all the passion we can muster
which is a lot
Love is a beauty to bathe in
and regenerate the soul
and it is spring
and Beauty surrounds us.
Beauty always surrounds us.

At Saturday Market
a tall skinny young man walks up to me
whispers something in my general direction
as the crowds continue to stroll
blindly by.
"I'm really hungry and haven't had anything to eat,"
he says.
"Can you help?"
"Sure," I say with enthusiasm.
I set down my recently purchased honey
pull out my wallet,
and find three ones
and hand them to him.
"Sweet!" he says joyously,
and I swear I hear his stomach filling.

I don't write this to toot my own horn,
fuck tooting horns.
Tooting horns wont feed the folks.
I write this
because America should be fucking embarassed
that we have people living on the streets at all.
I'm embarassed that America
doesn't even know that it is a violation
of human rights
here in this occupied territory
currently known
as the United States of America.

And don't give me
any of your holier than thou shit...
Because you know what I'll fucking tell ya!

It is spring.
The time of rebirth
renewal of energy
and I hear stories of the goings on in the world
the beauty of struggles and challenges
the beauty going on in others lives
the beauty going on in mine.

I bought a very beautiful Pashmina yesterday.
Purple paisley in a brown/gold.
It is beautiful.
I Love cloth
it seems tribal to me
though I don't know why.
I could change my room several times a day
feel like I'm traveling through
some psychic universe
like a nomad of sorts
honor something ancient within me.
I Love the feel of these things on my skin
the joy they bring to my eyes.

My daughter
who grows into a young woman
will be 12 in just a few weeks.
When I first met her
she was three months old
and she held my finger from Woodburn
to Oregon city
like it was a walking stick
to keep her balanced along her journeys.
My tears of joy
were the creek of water
to sustain her on her journey.
And here we are.

Today...
Today...
The front will come
or I will journey there
and be safe
as these fronts are of words and ideas
and everything begins and ends
and is recorded
in words and ideas
and I pray
that somewhere
somehow
we can water our seeds of peace
change the world
and stop all of the killing.