It is a cruel world,

We discover,

Or rather there are bits of cruelty 

Lying around like stones,

Awaiting all the perfect ones

To pick them up

And carry them

Into millennia.

Cast them! Cast them!

Thine careless words!

You who are perfect and without sin!

Cast them, cast them

Cast them again!

Cast them like dice

Whose numbers weigh

Upon the hearts that you would slay.

For as I live and breathe and die, here,

Broken-heartedly, today,

I know I will rise in the rosy fingered dawn,

And yawn like a cat, and verily say

That I have also discovered love

And beauty and truth 

And pleasure and peace of mind

In this cruel world of pain.

-jenn

 Why?

This is why a bum is better than me:

He was walking by and found a bird on the street that couldn’t fly,

And he didn’t ask it why.

He picked it up

And stood by the door of the convenience store

Out of the wind

And held it safe til it could fly again.

And I was driving in my car,

And the gusts of wind at hurricane force

Pushed a bird out of its nest,

And it hit the top of my van.

It bounced down hard onto the ground,

And with a panic stricken face,

It cried,

And there was someone on a motorcycle right behind me,

So I didn’t stop,

But felt I had to continue on,

Because by then, the light had turned to green.

And I screamed, “Why???”

All the way to the grocery store.

“Why. Why....

Why do tiny birds have to fall from the sky?”

And why... are bums, better people than I am?

-jenn 

 If you find your natural rhythm and state,

What you love and what you hate may melt away.

Have you found your melting point?

Are you a solid, liquid, or a gas at room temperature?

I’ve studied you and seen through your charade.

Your mask is a very well made one, but

Your struggle between such polarized poles has wearied you.

Relax.

Let the hummingbird within you take over.

Hover over the glorious nectar,

And get some

Before the other hummingbirds discover

Your secret flower and appear

In the square of your evening sky

To fight you for it.

But even then, you may find

Your secret power,

You enjoy the battle.

And that—-is wonderful,

For Life is full of them.

-jenn

 Why

Who would believe in butterflies

If he or she had never seen them?

These fluttering things with painted wings

That stagger through the sky.

There’s something arresting about a butterfly,

Something, at once, so cosmically comical,

And yet, impendingly beautiful.

And while I stop to watch it, I see,

That the foundation of time is cracking beneath me.

I can’t see every flutter of the wings.

There are missing chunks of time,

And mysteriously, and suddenly, 

The butterfly has disappeared.

And when did I grow this white beard?

I was once a very young girl,

And now I am

A very old man who knows

That truly nothing can be known or understood,

Nothing bad, or nothing good,

That can not be answered by the feeling one receives 

When one sees the painted wings emerge

From the dark green leaves and swagger off pitifully into another spring.

The alluring “Why?”

The seductive “Because,”

Butterflies exist.

-jenn

 Our love it something we set on,

Like an egg,

But nothing’s ever hatched from it.

Maybe it’s just a croquet ball,

And nothing ever will.

Or maybe it’s a mango seed

We could have planted long ago,

And by now had something to show for it?

Or maybe it’s a mandrake root,

And eagerly, I cling to it,

Not knowing what to do with it,

But desperately wishing to be alone with you

To see

If something mysterious mandrakey 

Might occur between you and me.

-jenn