Strong and Unbound Wings

We think of you/ long on the streets/ a titanium brace in your bad leg,/ sighing at pain, yet uncomplaining/ like a statue of marble or bronze./ One day, Mike, may you glide/ from your sidewalk perch/ as if you were always a bird,/ and now at last your wings/ are strong, unbound.

August Poetry of the Streets

A gentle lady with Parkinson's/ slept in dark alleyways/ without curfew and/ abandoned houses without walls/ in lonely Cable Car Land/ She's not there anymore/ a concerned young man/ gave her his arm and/ brought her to the hospital/ from where she never returned

When a Great Heart Ceases

I read M.A. Griffiths’ collected poems, "Grasshopper," from what I believe is a unique perspective, that of a poet who, like Griffiths, was dying over many months, alone, aware that she was close to death. Many of her poems are extremely moving to me, and I feel very close to them.