Weary

I've grown tired of being tired,
of reading the ho-hum news
without a scintilla of interest:
politics, politics, politics,
the latest scandal-in-the-making,
the newest outrage,
baseball, football, weather...
local politics, a heartwarming story,
see you at 11,
and on to Jeopardy.

Is that all there is?
Endless newsrooms with endless chatter,
solemn or cheerful,
depending on the story.
Detached, shifting focus to
various reporters in the field,
as if seeing a familiar face at
an unthinkably tragic scene
could make it all more palatable,
more real, more moving.

It's real enough.
I'm tired of being tired of reality,
of shooters and funerals and
tearful survivors and speculation
on who and why and how.
It fucking happened.
That's reality enough.
And no one seems to be
as tired as I am.
Tired enough to cut through the crap
and do something to stop it.

Friendship

Who can say what makes us friends?
Who can say what keeps us close?
There are a million reasons to drift away--but
some stay.

Despite the miles,
despite the changes,
despite the erosions of time and obligation,
we pick up where we left off
every time, against all expectation,
and somehow, it's the same conversation:
interrupted, for sure, but
still the same you, the same me,
speaking our language, our laughter,
our points of congruity.
That never seems to change.

I can't help but believe
it never will, and maybe
that's what God and eternal life are all about.
Love lives on.

I write this, thinking of you, Sandy;
of you, Jeff; of you, Doug;
of all the yous I no longer see,
living or dead--
gone from sight, but not from heart,
all of you alive in memory.
No matter how far you've gone,
no matter what dimension you inhabit,
no matter when we meet--or if we will again--
it will always be the same.
Some stay.