Hate crowds out love
Don’t feed that snarling flame.

Perfume the air of your souls
      with the fragrance of kinship.

Our lives are limited
      in breadth and scope and want.

Seek a higher yearning.
We still have time.

Yielding — to what?
Body shooting up flares left and right.
(My psyche, too).

I remain unsettled.
Eager to do so little.
Marching toward nothing           and caring not a wit…

Must. Break. Free.

Tethered gods in steely disarray
chicken feathers, bloodied and spare, bear witness
to savage foxes, wily and sleek
unearthed talismans of anguished fear
raised up amid the twilight of the heavens
seers of stars
while Orion speaks softly
to those who bravely heed his words.