To Care and Not to Care

Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it. Look deeply into it, and grow old with it, and spend time over it, and do not stir from it, because there is no greater portion. -Rabbi Ben Bag-Bag What's it like to be something that never dies? Your pages have been banned, burned and buried Only to be found again and again and again. Bedside table drawers in dark motels It's drawers can barely contain your light Words etched on prison walls live on to set the captive free. Your words pierce through history and time all the while holding history and time in your pages. What's it like to be something that's so hated and argued over? Misunderstood and misused. Do you mind? God, do you mind your breath being strangled? What's it like to be something that's so alive that all the wrestling and dissecting and sifting only makes you come more alive Your words are a bottomless well, pearls of great price, seeds to be found in the d

 On this day before I turn 38, I sit on a bench absorbing the sun, the wind, the water, the birds, the buzz of the leaf blower in the distance. I withdrew from the world for a bit to this monastic place to empty out. How can I sum up this last year around the sun? It was a fast and slow one. My hands let go of the merry-go-round eventually. Someone else, or Something else was spinning it. Was it our own wailing that kept it going? Multiple times throughout this past year I tried to grasp one of the bars on this merry-go-round. Sometimes I succeeded and rode it for a awhile, but I got dizzy and fell off. I fell off a lot.  I look and see the soil beneath me. It's a little dry and needs watering. Down here, the wailing is quieter, less invasive. I start to notice. I start to see the cracks that are thirsty, the weeds that need pulling, and the areas that need sifting. (Even the Earth groans in our ravage consumption and the sins of our forefathers continue to be reaped). It's har