Trekking among the steep defiles, Trailed by the sage, a young boy tried To use the dim-lit stars in hopes Of finding some path or some...

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair? Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air that your soul sought...

Fingers of light peel away the hiddenness of badge-wearing sadists and Apache helicopter war crimes. Fingers of light peel away the lies...

When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When...

This poem (and the music that accompanies it) was written to honor the memory of a Japanese woman who survived two American bombings of...

Evil is the systematic substitution of the abstract for the concrete. - Sartre As in “concrete” as well as “abstract,” and though I...

The light falls softly on the sparkling lawn, And then awakens every tree and flower, All earth renews, as it has since the dawn Of life...

If you should fall asleep, once more, And heed that soothing, calm refrain – From evening’s care, close fast the door – To quiet the...

Aspire to greatness, but not the kind they teach you about in school. Not the kind where you can all be astronauts and presidents when...

The clock is ticking in the pallid rays Of ghost-like morning hour’s waning moonlight, And though it orders all my waking days, It has no...

If angels plucked up blossoms In endless, light-drowned skies, With curved sextuple petals Glowing radiant white, Pearlescent in noon’s...

Will there be starlight tonight while she gathers damask and lilac and sweet-scented heathers? And will she find flowers, or will she...

No longer light, but not yet dark, We stand here in some space between And listen to a meadow lark; Last year she sang so sweet and keen...

I. Leaves of crispy gold and red drift softly from the sky, falling down to the frozen ground without a sound, to shrivel up and die –...

Lay down your armor And play for me your precious lyre; And let me hear Your deepest dreams and frail desires. Lay down your armor And...

Barbarous Captivity The stone confines the angel’s shape; It grips her hands with awful might; It clutches at her supple nape And hinders...

(adapted from a Tibetan folktale) In times long-past, there lived a band Of monkeys in a forestland, And as they rambled roundabout, They...

Old Nights Was it incubus or succubus who – groggy, doe-eyed – walked me through the fine rain, sleeping? Older now, still wet from then,...

Behold, she dangles, helpless in the sky, Affrighted by the curving earth below: It beckons so seductively, as though 'Twould be a...

Small Child Small child with my eyes return my heart before you wander. Take the jewels. I wish you plenty. Place a flower’s petals...