Roger A. Chrastil April Poet (art by Brett Maniscalco)

POLARIS, MON AMOR

                                    Finding you was easy—

                                    getting lost was the hard part.

                                    Winter and spring

                                    I crossed the ice fields to your heart

                                    and waited for the frozen Aurora

                                    to light my way.

                                    I set my compass

                                    to true moonstruck north

                                    and let my feet

                                    follow the blood-warm Bear.

                                    Snow blind and smiling

                                    I would have found your door

                                    at any distance,

                                    in whatever season.

BLESSING OF THE BABY                 

In Bali, Indonesia, newborn babies are considered gods and carried for their first six months without touching the ground.   Then, in a day-long ceremony, a holy man finds just the right spot for the infant to touch the ground and blesses the dirt with holy water.  When the baby touches the earth, it then joins the human race.  And I gave her my blessing:  “Good luck.  Be brave.”

                                                                                    Eat, Pray, Love

                                                                                    Elizabeth Gilbert

                      Revered as gods, the babies of Bali

are held in arms six months                

                        before they touch the earth.

                        In ancient ritual

                        the holy man marks on the ground

                        the four directions of the universe and

                        with holy water blesses the sacred spot

                        where feet first touch the earth,

                        where the baby joins the human race.

I believe the earth is sacred

I believe light is divine and

I believe babies are angels.

                        In my life I have held in arms

                        three strong and beautiful cherubim,

the angel Michael,  the angel Rachel and the angel Elizabeth.

Their faces glowed with celestial light.

and when they touched the earth became more lovely still,

giving and forgiving, perfect and complete,

ready at last for the years ahead,

grounded by the hurt that makes us human,

blessed by the light that makes us divine.

                                            ICEBERG

                        Everyone else is happy.

                        You alone in all creation

                        have been left out.

                        Even as a child, the other kids

                        knew the rules to the games

                        and found out early where babies came from,

                        and laughed at jokes you didn't get,

                        and sang the words to songs

                        you couldn't understand.

                        They knew by secret signs and codes

                        everything you did not.

                        Now, they are grown

                        and satisfied,

                        while you are incomplete

                        and wounded

                        and feel strangely deceived.

                        No, wait.

                        Against stupendous odds,

                        the chances, say, of getting hit in the face with a fish

                        while climbing K-2 with a kazoo in your pocket,

                        you alone are happy.

                        You have been given the secret,

                        the awareness,

                        the peace that passes all understanding.

                        Everyone else wallows in the pig-sty of indulgence

                        or fries in the desert of denial,

                        leading lives of unquiet undesperation,

                        while you, my friend,

                        are blessed,

                        transformed,

                        struggling against the real demons

                        in the arena of true meaning.

                        No.  Wait.

                        You are neither blessed nor cursed,

                        you are pretty much the same as everyone else,

                        you work and worry and eat and carry on

                        just as people do in Bangladesh or Akron, Ohio,         

                        and pass the days clutching and scrimping.

                        Years go by;

                        decades.

                        And then you are old, my friend,

                        and wonder on what day you will open the newspaper

                        and find yourself in the obituary:

                        "He slash She was born in 19blank blank

                        and died in 20blank blank

                        and never knew what was going on."

                        You fear that death is the end

                        and that life has passed you by

                        like the blur of a lighthouse in a kaleidoscope

                        and that you will never figure it out.

                        You know that no one

                        has ever figured it out,

                        but that news comforts you

                        like a glass of water

                        to a drowning sailor.

                        We are all on board the Titanic,

                        arguing about whose turn it is to play shuffleboard

                        or who deserves the larger stateroom

                        or whose deck chair this is

                        or whom the wine steward likes best,

                        when we all should--

                        well, what?--

                        try to reach our travel agent on the wireless

                        to give that nincompoop one last piece of our mind

                        before this boat goes four stacks down

                        or wonder if there really is enough dark matter in space

                        to pull this whole damned thing back together again

                       or sidle nonchalantly toward a lifeboat?

                        But no:

                        we would rather act cool going down in the middle of the ocean

                        or act hot going down on our girlfriend slash boyfriend

                        or act stupid getting drunk in front of a roomful of strangers

                        than ever to say,

                        Wow,

                        I don't know where this tub is going,

                        but it sure is a hell of a ride.

                                    SLEEPING IN THE DUNES

                        When you're in love with someone

                        who doesn't love you back

                        a wolverine crawls into your sleeping bag

                        and clamps its jaws around your face.

                       All night you wrestle with the muzzle

                     of what might have been.

                        In the morning, your numb fingers

                        can't fumble a fire out of the wet driftwood.

                        You walk along Lake Michigan for three miles

                        through the cold November rain

                        to find your favorite cafe dark

                        and closed for the season.