Turning 68 — Confessions, Confusions, Semi-conclusions

~   I wish I had not taken so many shortcuts. It’s the winding journey that leads everywhere.

~   All this saving of time, and I still only have now.

~   You may think it’s difficult taking back your words, …try taking back your silence.

~   The thrust of it is: the soul is built up through mercy and truth, and torn down by resentment.

~   There are 59 million people in the world who are 68, and every one of them understands that by this age, change is a long shot, and should it come, it will come from the inside.

~   My sudden cry of, hallelujah! startled everyone in the Dollar Store.

~   After years of shedding the trinkets of faith — faith found me.

~   Hope resembles Covid, in that it resists extermination.

~   And yet, and yet, I look at the trembling sea, radiant orange from a sinking sun, and I want to wrap my legs around it. Hopeless, like many other desires.

~   So many things can fill the heart. But nothing, it seems, fills it completely.

~   Consciousness of the abyss is also an engine of conversion.

~   Cynicism is a cranky old man with a full bladder, and yet, as appealing as Louise in that crochet halter top.

~   Speaking of romance, O, such a notion I had burdened myself with: that I needed no one to show me who I am.

~   Matter gives way, opacity wears out, transparency is the mystery.

~   As a lifelong skeptic, I live in fear of clarity. When clarity comes, I live in fear of doubt. When in doubt, I practice replacing the word “void” with “God,” over and over again. As soon as it sticks, the skeptic returns.

~   Infatuation gives way, passion wears out, intimacy is the mystery.

~   When the thief stole my watch it was as if he’d severed my wrist. I scolded myself for being that attached to possessions. Yet now I can’t seem to stop dividing the world into upright citizens and thieves.

~   When I demanded consideration for my years of sacrifice, God said, “My son, you may be confusing me with an investment broker.”

~   I pleaded, O Lord, help me to know my faults. The Lord asked, “Tell me, of what faults do you accuse others?”

~   To the conspirators, as to the Fundamentalists, there is an obvious reason for everything.

~   The calendars of establishment leftists and institutional liberals boast of endless conferences.

~   The shadow is darkest when there’s just you holding a candle. Call to your side others with candles.

~   I asked the Divine Mother if there was anything greater than joy, She said, “Nothing, other than finding its source.” Then I asked, is there anything greater than finding its source? She said, “Nothing, except being its cause in another.”

~   I spent 25 years working at a homeless shelter, every day I was amazed that no one said, “What’s that boy doing working at a homeless shelter?”

~   If you’re lucky, the poem will wait for the noise in your head to clear so you can grapple with a few short lines that say what they mean. If you are even luckier, you will receive a grant, the condition of which is to leave off writing poetry.

~   I renounced the world. Then someone picked up what I renounced. Then I refined my renunciation. It goes on like this.

~   God, while I have your ear, tell me, how in the world will I shoulder all this weight? God said, “Well, in the first place, you don’t have to pick it up.”

~   That’s when I heard myself, for the second time, cry, hallelujah!