today again i was aware of birds a crow
stepped carefully on a white suv roof
chatting with another stirring road leaves
as i to the lake to puddle in green and
read how to blow up a pipeline all
the pain in the world growing and
we know what pain does
to personality how it isolates
and hardens fear so many calluses
and blisters on myself and others worry
that a framework where suffering
earns joy cannot explain or suffice for us
but neither will the lone retreat concealing
the fear and pain of connection to
our mutual organs of thought emotion
growth into the sunshine our metabolism
joins plants in. so we mist
atomized in potential wells
of screens paychecks roles so we
look out of holes that are not the grave
and must clamber each to hopes
to clamber out together so we need
joy and light and flowers we can find
in our holes that are not not baths
until they overflowing spread us
into a lake of sun and then a sea
we can swim together. a single
hummingbird thirty feet up
buzzes a conifer confused