Failure is a word you look up in the dictionary, just like you
look into someone's eyes quite young and realize
jubilation is always triumphed in error. Because it's
never over really. Even monks singing to flowers
know that. Even the church mouse still aches. Praise fall
from grace and cracks that let the light in. Too cynical
for words today the chalk screeches mid-way through
a red mark, and the book is too heavy to carry home
from the pew. Relief in the end even if it's too late
to tell the whole story. How it happened. The split,
then the waiting for night to be over, for sadness to
lose its silent wail, and for itching fingers crawling along
sweaty sheets to find a way back to those open
windows in back seats barreling along a lone highway,
corn leaves curled up and glistening, hiding jewels,
for a taste of tomorrow, with King yelling from a
podium to masses a call for redemption, and Seeger
pounding those hammers in a Redwood forest - a song
about you and yourself as lover here, all over.

Audio reading by Victor D. Sandiego

Sarah Rohrs is a newspaper reporter refugee who now uses her note-taking skills at political and church meetings convened to fight backward political strides in immigration and poverty. She moved to Salem, Oregon to escape the San Francisco Bay Area's housing madness. She enrolls in the occasional poem-a-day class, takes lots of photos on her magic Coolpix, and volunteers at Head Start.