Two poems on chaos

Tidal Prayer

I used to, in disasters
try to account
for everyone I loved

Are we okay?
Let us be okay

But now I love
too many people
and the world

Is full of disasters
so I pray

By opening my heart wide
letting it fill with pain and love

And emptying it into the sea
to be bourne again
on the tide

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The Second Law

My dear, it is the law of the universe
that everything tends toward chaos
so don’t be so hard on yourself

When you spill coffee on every clean, white shirt
or drop the house keys
trying not to spill the coffee

These things are only matter, after all, as are you
and matter tends to disperse itself
unless something stops it

Listen, I am not a physicist
but I know that your coffee would have
grown cold anyway, eventually

And that energy sources need
to constantly be renewed—
yours as much as anyone else’s

My love, do not think that you can hold together
what the universe insists on tearing apart

Relax into the disorder. Accept it. Learn
to sometimes be an object at rest.

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