Senbazuru

Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making
of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread
                                                            ~Pablo Neruda
 
this poem contains no morals to be pinned
on trees—just a string of  a thousand pretty words:

    palimpsest—syzygy
                 —polliwogs—
   —edelweiss—contrabass—gladiolii
               — anemone & so on…

they belong to us and us to them—these words
sprung from the teeth of our ancestors—
may they carve us a new blue marble
should the old not suffice               let us

gather stories from starlight and hearthstones
shake vowels in a bone cup, gather tales
from rice paddies and shopping malls
craft lines to ride on the crest of the knife

as the dead take their place, give them words
to rename our streets and villages
to quell the battles       

in John 21:3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing

     for the bombshell of understanding
     for the celebration within us,
     for the recognition of ourselves
             in the prisoner

may the wisdom of words move us to madness
fold poems into origami birds
compose songs from the candle ends
of our conversations—wish for us
on a thousand paper cranes