Is anger the first step on the road to love?
Show me your anger, and I’ll know where you dwell.
Do you crave the crunch of snow, the glint of ice?
Hie ye to Svalbard where the polar bears dwell.
Dare to call God’s name in this self-made hell?
Does He still speak, below, in the muck where we dwell?
Only an urbanite can believe in pastorals;
here foxes and owls, red in tooth and claw, dwell.
Enough is as good as a feast, they say, but when
is enough, enough? We must all learn to dwell.
“There is no safety; they seek only shelter of some kind.
The sea creeps into the tents where they dwell.”**
Squirrels steal our persimmons, unripe and green,
Hoarding them in dreys where they dwell.
I watched the red-shouldered hawk as she fell
like a stone from the branch where she dwells.
Send up the alarm, strike the gong, toll the bell!
We have no other planet on which to dwell.
We thought time would unspool, an infinite thread;
shocking to learn there’s an end to our dwelling.
You breathing next to me--inhale, exhale.
You, Beloved, are the home where I dwell.
**NPR report on Gazans being forced to move again from Khan Younis 7/2/24
