Menagerie

We’ve held hands through a downpour and a blizzard,
but when I’m out would you care for my lizard?
Our friendship ship is like the ark of Noah,
But would you, my best buddy, watch my Boa?
Others whom I’ve asked have hollered, “Heck, no!”
But would you when I go care for my Gecko?
We’d do together anything we wanna,
But when I’m gone would you feed my iguana?
We’ve talked philosophies, Aristotelean,
But would you house one weekend my chameleon?

Your care is incredibly rare—one in a jillion—
but would you care for pets that are reptilian?

You’ve slogged with baggage that’s been hard to lug,
but when I travel would you watch my slug?
Our friendship ship beats any with its sail,
but if I’m out would you tend to my snail?
We’ve been through times of clarity and fog,
but would you feed mosquitoes to my frog?
I won’t ask you to lift a heavy load,
but would you ever watch over my toad?
You’d do a lot, I know, for friendship’s sake,
but would you babysit my rattlesnake?

Through thick and thin times you have lingered by me,
but would you watch my creatures that are slimy?

You’re kind, but would you kindly keep an eye on,
a pet that’s dear to me, my ten-foot python?
Together we’ve enjoyed some apple cider,
but would you feed some bug juice to my spider?
Outside the loo, you waited as I peed,
but would you put shoes on my centipede?
When backs have ached, we’ve rubbed each other’s spines,
but would you entertain my porcupines?
As though a blossom, love from us has budded,
but would you watch my pets that are cold-blooded?

Would you, my friend, my love, dear one, agree
to care for my immense menagerie?

Mario A. Pita

Bless, Sing

Your singing is a blessing:
you bless us when you sing.
From your songs, beauty blossoms
like gladness does in spring.
You bless us like a blueness
in which we can take wing.
You bless us like a blanket
that shields us from cold’s sting.
You bless us in a blending
of voice and keys and strings.
You bless us, heart and mind blown,
with breath-borne worlds you bring…

Your singing is a blessing:
Please bless, sing, bless, sing…

Mario A. Pita
(Backing vocals by Maddie Lam )

Inner Tree

I’ve loved the rootedness
of fingers intertwined,
romantic loveliness
of lives that grow combined,
and wondered how I could
survive stripped of such roots,
and haven’t understood
a tree without pursuits:

The tree within my chest,
that blossoms with each breath,
the tree with which I’m blessed
roots me within life’s depth.

I’ve loved the trees outside
and also now my own,
the tree that blooms inside,
that since my birth has grown:

The tree within my chest,
that blossoms with each breath,
the tree with which I’m blessed
roots me within life’s depth.

While intertwining may
or may not be my lot,
I’m rooted either way,
blessed with the tree I’ve got:

The tree within my chest,
that blossoms with each breath,
the tree with which I’m blessed
roots me within life’s depth.

Mario A. Pita

Foliage Volition

The fallen leaves were running down the street
as if they had somewhere they wished to go.
They seemed to sprint although they had no feet,
away from branches where they used to grow.

Though we may have free-will, at times it seems
we’re moved like leaves obeying wind regimes.

The leaves ran by as if by some command
they had no other choice but to obey,
an order that they couldn’t understand
about how fast to gallop and which way.

Though we may have free-will, at times it seems
we’re moved like leaves obeying wind regimes.

The leaves which on the street appeared to run
seemed headed for festivities and fun,
but I wished to be like a different one:
the kind that on a tree collects the sun…

We’re moved like leaves obeying wind regimes
but can be free — like leaves collecting beams.

Mario A. Pita

Breakup Rap

She smashed my heart to smithereens,
my heart was pulverized.
She blasted it as though it were
an ocean vaporized.

She whipped it with her final words,
a textual assault,
and vilified me so she felt
her onslaught was my fault.

She shot the love I had for her.
She killed it when she cussed,
attacking me with expletives
that crushed my heart to dust.

Although undoubtedly I’m flawed,
my thinking often fogged,
I know I don’t deserve to be
with foul language flogged.

I tried to pour a boundless love
into a friendship glass,
though my romantic feelings grew
as commonly as grass.

She shattered it to jagged shards
that cut me with the shame
my boundlessness crossed boundaries:
she didn’t feel the same.

Admonished to withhold my feeling,
I found that’s what she did:
resentment what she was concealing.
I’m stabbed by what she hid.

My heart was trampled on and mangled,
to itty bits was shredded,
so she whom I so wished to see
is for me now most dreaded.

Although my heart was badly stung,
on this fact I can’t linger,
to be like bees producing honey,
not dwelling on the stinger.

Although I feel that I was burned,
as she may feel as well,
I’ll try to dwell on what I learned,
the healing place to dwell.

Although I’m reeling from the wound
I feel that she inflicted,
I wish that she, no less than me,
be well and unafflicted.

My heart was beaten, but it beats,
and I hope with this drum
to do amazing, lovely feats,
whatever life may come.

Mario A. Pita

Umbilical Soliloquy

The doctor said that I should be aborted
because my mother’s body had been strained,
as she’d just given birth, could not afford it,
as exile whose resources were drained.

But she refused to follow his advice,
so I took shape within her womb unthwarted,
conceived by accident, a roll of dice,
but consciously sustained, with love supported.

I’m grateful that she didn’t heed the doc
but wonder if the fact she was depleted
explains some difficulties hard as rock,
deficiencies that left me uncompleted.

I had, however, that which was most needed,
though some things may have been in short supply:
the death-prescribing doctor wasn’t heeded,
as I was wanted and not made to die.

When I was still a forming embryo
and nourishment flowed to me through a cord,
I didn’t as I floated curled up know
my growth was hard for my mom to afford.

I didn’t know in months as I was built,
I wasn’t made a ghost with her womb haunted,
and cells were stitched together like a quilt,
because, unlike so many, I was wanted.

I didn’t know that I would fill with guilt
in years ahead when mental ailments struck,
and feel that all that I could do is wilt,
and feel that all that I would do would suck.

But as I didn’t know within the womb
about the choice my mom made with me cherished,
I didn’t know nor could I have presumed
without her choice and love I would have perished,

I know that there is much I now don’t know,
but from my being wanted at the start,
it was instilled in me from life’s get-go
that I am wanted though things may look stark.

It’s not my point here to pontificate
but wish for what no one can legislate:
may everyone feel wanted from their birth,
nourished by our cosmic mother, Earth.

Mario A. Pita

Dwellings

My home was a burrow
and hers was a nest.
We dwelled in them both
and felt ourselves blessed.

But she was the home
for which I felt meant,
my burrow no more
to me than a tent:

The homes made of walls,
when push comes to shove,
are nothingness next
to homes made of love.

She dwelled in my home
when hers filled with water
but didn’t want me
to house my daughter,

Anxiety filling
her mind like a flood,
submerging her dwelling
of flesh and blood.

The homes made of walls,
when push comes to shove,
are nothingness next
to homes made of love.

She worried I had
no plan for my dwelling,
for when I was old
and rents kept on swelling.

But I’d trade the walls
of the world’s biggest house
to dwell in a love
shack with my spouse.

The homes made of walls,
when push comes to shove,
are nothingness next
to homes made of love.

Mario A. Pita

Friendship Anguish

Friends with Kristin,
so grateful to be,
so happy to be,
friends with Kristin…

But now when I enter
the rooms that we kissed in,
the rooms of my home,
the rooms she is missed in,
the world seems a place
so hard to exist in.

Friends with Kristin,
so grateful that she
is someone I see,
friends with Kristin…

But when like a blade
the memories twist in,
I find I am foolish
to try to persist in
fighting my feelings
through wars I enlist in.

Friends with Kristin,
so grateful to be…

Mario A. Pita

Droplet Chalice

When I am told to trust myself, I think
how shattered glass can’t trust itself to hold
a wine, or water, or whatever drink,
but though I may not do as I was told,

just like a drop of dew that holds the sun,
reflected, brilliant, in its little glass,
I too can hold a light as it has done,
just like a dew drop on a blade of grass.

It holds the sun, the drop of dew
that shows me what I too can do.

A drop of dew is tiny, yet
the sun, reflected, fits in it,
and though I can’t catch water with my net,
in me, as in the dew, a light can fit.

It holds the sun, the drop of dew
that shows me what I too can do.

Lyrics and Music: Mario A. Pita, Photo: Nicholas Erwin

Mario A. Pita

Empowerment Litany

While there are many powers that I lack
and lacking of these powers has been hard,
providing ammo for despair’s attack,
a burning woe by which my mind was charred,

I’ll dwell here on the powers I possess,
the powers that I wish to use while able,
the powers I can cultivate to bless
as though a feast set on a dinner table.

Before commencing, I will pause to note
the grief of lacking powers I desired,
the grief in which I’ve sunk as if a boat,
the grief in which I’ve felt myself hell-fired.

I don’t have power to control my thoughts,
the daily torrents streaming through my brain,
of thickness clogging consciousness like clots
or speeding through my mind as though a train.

I don’t have power to control my feelings,
unpleasant and unnerving though they be,
that seem to block the sky like leaky ceilings,
beyond which it is often hard to see.

I can’t control the hurtful acts of others,
keep them from harmful things they do or say,
can’t alter what’s immutable that smothers
lives around the globe by night and day.

I can’t be sure of what each day will bring,
to me and to the others in the world,
when fate will cut each life as though a string,
what new developments will be unfurled.

I can’t be sure of what it’s all about,
the answers to the questions all possess
of mysteries that we can’t figure out
of which we just can speculate or guess…

But I can dig as if for buried treasure
through difficulties, finding deep in them
a jewel of worth impossible to measure,
unearthing hidden joy as though a gem.

And I can play an instrument, my voice,
or others, like a piano or keyboard,
and singing, playing, I can make the choice
to hold as tether every passing chord.

And I can use my two arms for embracing,
with strength that sustenance has given limbs,
and pause from worldly hub-bub ever-racing,
to fill life’s cups of living to their brims.

And I can work to heal the wounds I’ve gotten
from others or myself since childhood,
and not turn bitter like a fruit that’s rotten,
but renovate my mental neighborhood.

And I can reach for life like trees to light,
immensity beyond what’s in my head,
and lessen mine or someone else’s plight,
and grow new foliage as old is shed.

And I can speak the truth of what I live,
including of an illness with a stigma,
the truth I feel the best that we can give,
commiserating through life’s deep enigma.

With humor, I can make a smile blossom,
and even often cause a laugh to bloom,
lightheartedness, like sunshine, being awesome,
dispelling sometimes existential gloom.

And I can play, though grown, as if a kid,
with wonder, learn, discover and explore,
try doing different things I never did,
to boldly grow as I’ve not grown before.

And, like the universe, I can create,
fill voids of darkness of no thing to see
with life-filled worlds and stars that scintillate,
each work of art a kind of galaxy.

Embracing life the way it is at present,
not chasing phantoms of the way it was,
I can make the most of what’s unpleasant,
the way the wisest of the cosmos does.

And I can celebrate with gratefulness,
and even in the midst of sufferings,
life’s wonders in their stunning boundlessness,
the beauties and the blessings each day brings.

And I can listen to the many things
that others in the universe may tell,
with openness respectful of all beings,
and wish that every one of them be well.

And, like a honeybee, I have the power,
although I feel that to a pit I’ve fallen,
to cultivate some sweetness from life’s flower,
collecting nectar while relaying pollen.

And if by helplessness I feel devoured,
I can recall that also I’m empowered.
While there are powers, tons, I haven’t got,
I can, with ones I have, live, give, a lot!

Mario A. Pita