Spokesmen

While many people claim to speak for You
or think that they are authorized to tell
what You’re like and want us all to do
to get to heaven while avoiding hell,
I’ve wondered what would make them qualified,
since they say different things, and we are liable
to be misled by each well-meaning guide,
or idolizing something—like a Bible.
But in the wilderness through which I seek
a path to You—invisible to eyes—
I know that though they may have had a peek,
that doesn’t make them infinitely wise:
their points of view may scratch or they may pinch
Your boundlessness as though by just an inch.

Prayer inspired by “That to which we are Tethered” an essay by Spun Counterguy

Mario A. Pita

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Neighbor Singer

For Damia

It’s possible that angels fly above us
in higher worlds than our terrestrial sphere,
residing in a realm from which they love us,
the people struggling with living here.
It’s possible that in that realm that’s higher
flow melodies like we have never heard,
of beauty we can’t fathom, from a choir
of angels, each with wings as though a bird.
But when I hear my downstairs neighbor sing,
it seems their songs are streaming from below,
as if to ease the pains of life that sting,
as if to soothe with deep, melodic flow.
There may be realms above all Earth’s despairs.
I’m thankful, though, for singing from downstairs.

 

Mario A. Pita

Sara

For Sara Garment

While you were in the world, you suffered lots
because of various infirmities,
obstructing life flows like tenacious clots
and robbing you of healthiness’ ease.
Yet though your lifeline was ensnared in knots
by unrelenting ailments that would seize
your carefree days and fill them up with shots,
your life itself transcended all of these.
While you were running with your illness load,
you stopped to comfort someone as he wept,
beneath a tree, a stranger, by the road.
For decades, it’s a memory I’ve kept.
Still I pray, though that’s a long-gone era,
that I may help, and be somebody’s Sara.

Mario A. Pita

Sirens

Though siren sounds may usually mean trouble,
as when they’re summoned by a blaze alarm,
when wooden homes could be reduced to rubble
and people in them could face death or harm;
or when a crime as of a shooting spree
triggers them from cars with lights that spin,
or when a corporal emergency
means someone’s being rushed to save their skin;
the siren sound you make as your song ends
feels unlike those of terrible distress:
it fills me with a hope in life that mends
so what prevails is love and loveliness.
Most siren sounds alarm, but with your voice
you fashion one as outlet to rejoice.

Mario A. Pita

Mist

*
As we walked in the morning on a shore
that looped in semicircle of a harbor,
several thousands of us, maybe more,
whose daily lives had often gotten harder
because an ailment that’s invisible
had shrouded once clear minds as if in mist
and shattered any sense of being invincible,
while hurting just as though a punching fist;
we saw the harbor’s distant shore as veiled
in a mystery of mist, a gorgeous curtain,
beyond where people out for fun have sailed,
revealing loveliness in what’s uncertain:
the mist hid much, but this was clear to see:
there’s gorgeousness within uncertainty.

*
As I walked by a harbor with my team,
supporting with each step a worthy cause,
a thick mist made the distant shoreline seem
concealed as if by finely woven gauze.
In my life I’ve done lots of yearning for
the other side, the one we can’t get to,
beyond this life, the other shore,
the one that’s hidden from our mortal view.
But sad it would have been to overlook
the members of my team, each one a gem,
with my attention caught as with a hook
by some obscured far shore instead of them.
The other shore is gorgeous, veiled in mist,
but here are treasures too, not to be missed.

1 Million Steps for OCD Walk

Mario A. Pita

Retrospective

for Daniel Weller

The intricate, dark paintings of your youth
that yield so many fruits to feed the eyes,
as if they showed a world inside of you,
in symbolistic, colorful disguise,
gave way to paintings of a brighter kind,
appearing optimistic in their hues,
springing from a hopeful frame of mind,
tranquility and loveliness their views.
And I was struck, since youth is left behind,
and older age may often bring dark news,
though to the dark we needn’t be resigned,
if there’s a form of brightness we can’t lose:
though we run out of beats—each heart a drum—
your art gives hope in brilliance yet to come.

The Clearing, Daniel Weller, 2000

Mario A. Pita 

Dimensions

Beyond the three dimensions where we dwell,
or four if we include the one of time,
or as string theories claim some ten or twelve,
where only mathematically we climb,
is one with which I’ve been the most concerned,
a paranormal realm of mind and soul.
I’ve felt I traveled to it then returned,
regarding it to be my highest goal.
My ailing mind, though, hasn’t let me go
for ages to that numinous dimension,
its memory a flame reduced to glow
that sometimes seems a fanciful invention.
But all my lofty trips of soul and mind
feel lower now than acts of being kind.

Mario A. Pita