I watch the full moon rising up between the fan palm trees.
The night sky glowing onto the desert ground around me.
This has been a quiet year full of old troubles unresolved.
I plan to throw a cup of flowers on the wild grass today,
throw them up into the air for good fortune and respect,
for Buddha’s birthday and as a prayer for peace.
It’s a year since my best friend died during the pandemic.
Each day now I’m trying to ignore the bombs over the Ukraine,
indiscriminate, killing everyone in the path of the missiles
as if human life has no value for any of us any where we are.
I watch my honey-colored dog’s dancer’s leap on our walk,
the lizards racing across the rocks in a bed of wildflowers,
flowers popping out of the sand, defying logic,
coaxing thoughts of love and poems fat with life, and I find
my way because of them, onward, all the way, as far as I mean to go