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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

For You, Wall

I am honored that you life this page
and read me.
I am only a wall,
an edifice of disappointing words.
But I am here
because you are here,
because your words,
your eyes are mine.
Because nothing that has happened to me,
hasn’t happened to you.
So I am honored that you stay
for a moment.

We are the same.
I am your voice,
your loving heart,
your raging heart.
People wonder what it is I do,
or some people wonder,
or perhaps none at all,
but I wonder what they do.
I am surprised,
how I have come to care for them.
How they return as children,
used and scarred,
walls of hope and listening.

It is because I have stood
in the same place for ages.
Because, in all my travels
I have stayed in the same place,
and listened to them,
and listened to you,
and vowed to be an amanuenses,
a scribe.
Telling you, sit with me,
see the fitting of my stones,
listen to the years
weather me with storms.
I have become a sounding chamber,
a humble hearer of your prayers,
and tell you,
in this face of stone,
this wall of joy and separation,
you are the beautiful being
I hear in my heart,
and find words for.

Published inIndex of all Poems