Robert Daniel Smith, Author, Sacred Activist

            

From the introduction to
"Resplendent In Rags" (The Wild and Homeless Gospel of the Ragged-Man and Friends):

"I wrote this book because I had to: I had to get down into my DNA to understand the meaning of my life: I had to whiplash my consciousness into expanding the limits I had placed upon my heart and soul, and so "undress" Jesus and St. Francis, and witness their transformations into Yeshua the Poet of Nazareth and Little Brother Francis, the Ragged-Man: both broken and liberated into the resurrection of Love-Without-Limits: very simply put, I had to go where my courage refused to take me..."

Tribe
    (for Chinatown-Salinas)

You are my tribe   to you
I belong   as a blanket shared in an alley
You took me under
Into the darkness   you trusted
I had no intent to harm
We slept   under the cold ocean fog
Moving about   into   and through
Our skin   our minds   our hearts and souls
You were the first to rise
I felt you slip away
You returned with a loaf of rescued
French bread   and black coffee
Black as your skin   now that I could 
See you   secret sister brother
I said thank you   knowing
There are no thanks that can capture
And keep away from me   the loneliness
That slays me with every   memory
Frozen in the eternal time   of my mind
And in your great dignity   dressed
In black   with calloused   broken nailed
Filthy hands   you said   nothing
Only I was thinking   maybe
I could   someday   become worthy   of
This bread   this cup   and this holy
Holy land