first things later:

Dear, I am going to collapse this great irony between two hands

and speak something over this ground. This is for Tucson - for anyone listening. This is what I am telling you:

you, far from home? Perhaps.

You rolling on forward in the life, in the life. Can I tell you how much you’re loved;

how much purpose you are simply made of.

put your feet forward, one in front of the other; look up and please recognize your surroundings.

I am but a translator here, when I tell you

There are streams even now rising within the desert – an ocean lapping at the loose and thirsty dry tongues of your tennis shoes. The wrenching want within you is the feel of a season changing – it is your heart facedown upon a quaking existence,

the angling of a different light, of an answer to your frustrated roar.

you, seeker?

You have been heard.

He’s pulling anguish and crushing it beneath Love.

If I asked you, could you notice the best things about being alive today?

Could you appreciate the heartbreaking beauty of brokenness and desire it be made whole –

a chalk drawing running on the sidewalk,

the pent-up smear that frees its pieces in the rain

because that is where the artist put it with an intention and a dream of impermanence

Your waxen face has bubbled under the intensity of it, and tears sizzle upon ruined cheeks

            just a little while longer,

just until a greater thumb smoothes down the shape of your troubled chin.

May I encourage you to remember the love that is pounding on the other side of your brick wall

as persistently as your feet continue.

One in front of the other.