NEWS FROM OREGON

God knows I’m mad,
displeased with his most recent
choices I can’t change.

I shake my head with eyes
downcast, side-to-side disgustedly
before looking-up to ask why

with so much evil in this world,
so much greed and power-lust,
so many egos to overcome:

we need all the good hands
we can get to make the gather
for the virtues we hold in common.

But time is on His side,
not mine, to make the most
of what’s left of the dead

and dying. To shake my fist
at heaven is wasted energy
I may need, instead

I hold their faces close,
feel them smile, blessed
to have known them.

for Alice Hancock and Leon Flick