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“No Hard Feelings” is an inspiring folk ballad about finding peace in dying. The Avett Brothers ask: “When my body won’t hold me anymore. And it finally lets me free. Will I be ready?” and…

Recall, in your mind’s eye, this sight: two white-shirted figures
      exploring the October hills above Nagasaki. enjoying the freedom
            to talk unencumbered. “Sometimes,” you said,
                  “I think nature has a way of playing Bach to itself.”

I was fasting that day when we went out into the farmlands
around Nagasaki, looking up referrals. After hours of walking,
we found ourselves on a ridge looking down on rice fields
      and a tiny village

Sun-dappled redwood mist
      bandtails flush, wrentits call through fiery green walls.
Chattering hikers returning from the still-inaudible sea
blindly pass a doe in the ferns.

Not all birds fly south
when leaves flame then
fall and nights turn
cold and daunting.

The mystery of flight times and of paths
that pierce the sky, scarring the flesh of heaven,
hangs just above and gently seeps into
this temple to the god of taking trips;

at my house we
don’t talk about Mom
and no one knows why

All things denote there is a God, even the carpet, and
the tile, and the television. Tele- meaning “at a distance” plus “vision.” And yet the
toddler places his palm directly on the screen, patting the prophet’s

What is like grating cheese? Hard
to begin with vehicle before tenor
but perhaps Samson’s falling locks.