A Certain Grim Assessment

The cemetery any morning can become. Fields of snow in moonlight, the moon narrow and bright.

Crows pick through the compost, flapping away when we come too close. In the side yard lilac, two chickadees are what I think happiness resembles when embodied.

A prayer that aims at quantifiable results is a plea or a plan, not a prayer. This pine forest that long ago was a sheep farm.

Yet is it possible death is in fact a process rather than an event? Two glasses of whisky argue that what we argue over is not what we actually want to promote or defend, and yet.

One fails countless disciple application exams, ends up in a little town on the edge of the desert teaching basic math to the cobbler's daughter, and unexpectedly discovers happiness is natural, already given, et cetera. The hard part is saying what you want because when you do the world instantly crystallizes and you have never been good at recognizing what is static.

Visits to where the sea is visible have a discernible effect on consciousness, enlarging it somehow, or maybe supplementing its natural light. Looking back to see who is entering, readying ourselves for what comes next.

Every teacher knows that some students are better than others, but only a few understand that this is a reflection of the teacher not the students. Chocolates wrapped in gold foil, roses on the floor of the shut-down factory.

God is a nontrivial idea, helpful or unhelpful according to context. We who balance risk in the interest of gains we would otherwise deny.

In a dream, a woman who troubles me appears happy and I sort of dance around her - mutual elision abounds - and we laugh and our eyes fill with blue light. One wakes at 3:16, mentally notes the gospel allusion, and gets out of bed.

Judgments were made, sentences given. At the bottom of a well, one executes a certain grim assessment, one learns the value of looking up.