A Birthday Message In the Rain

I dreamt a pigeon's feather
and it uttered your eternal name

there on the wet road home
it sat in the rain,
immersed in wait.

Cringing at the sight of my tires
never tiring the burden of words
you spelt in a rainbow
on its back
picking its feathers clean of the confused mud
clearing its sanity away

“no haste...someday
you’ll arrive here too
in your tatters of a spirit
and tattoos of long-lived longing
engraved
with the plume of a brown pegion
roosting in the rain
dragging drizzling letters to your doorstep…
Yes, it’s I, your father…again…
Happy Birthday…”

The Truth She Invented

Don’t talk too loud;
they do not want to hear the truth of what you saw
because they didn’t invent it…

Don’t use those words
they pulled them out of the local dictionary
three massacres ago…they will not make sense anymore.

Darling, be quiet.
Think your thoughts…in silence…
This telephone has ears…

The books of history
will tell the son
that his father killed for ‘liberty.’
They will not talk
of the other son
who watched through the window
his father's spurting life
stain the concrete patio of their home
permanently...
for reasons he will never know
because he couldn't invent them…
He will have his own words for the local dictionary.

These books of science
will tell you
that its necessary
some must go
so others
whose Truths matter more
stay on…

That’s another truth,
and you didn't invent it…

There... close to the sun-filled window
where the old old trees bare their arms
for the weary traveller
of winding questions
as he tries to discover a bosom of rest,
lies a stone-filled grave.

In it, the shades of centuries-old green visions
are buried
under the very feet of those who land there,
soaked in crimson truth,
like no one invented…
truth, that even you
cannot fathom!