• About

Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone

~ a wild and sacred journey

Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone

Monthly Archives: January 2018

“About” page republished:

28 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by feralpoet in poetry

≈ Comments Off on “About” page republished:

Once entitled Rooted In Grace {Rooted, embodied, bound, nourished, held.
In.
Grace, the Infinite, great Mystery, artful movement, expression of silence}

Now entitled “Salt, Smoke, and Stone”-

Unavoidable chafe and Dance, delicious moment and precipitous drop, disappearing Scent and heavenly Body-

Here.

A gathering of the ephemeral and limitless, the bruise and Magic of experience.

A medicine of word.

Welcome. Your presence, and any comments you may offer, are a gift.

Reproduction or use of any of the writings or photos on this site are by permission only.                         Please send an email if interested:

feralpoetrootedingrace@gmail.com

~ All Rights Reserved ~

In gratitude…

The mendacity of the Father

28 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by feralpoet in break out, change, courage, family, freedom, learning, movement, pain, poems, poetry, release, Sight, vision

≈ Comments Off on The mendacity of the Father

The mendacity of the Father,

the for-your-own-good, you’ll-

understand-one-day,

spank you on the ass ruler of the house,

might there not be another way?

Look the white shark in the eye and see

what he claims to be is none other

than the abuse he forgets

once brought him to his knees.

Question where you came from,

you may find there’s a curse

invisible, iron gripped,

you alone can shake off.

Pain, unaddressed, is only fed

to the next generation who cling,

cling to the same pedagogy

that poisoned your once Free spirit..

Now’s the time-

reclaim it.

The naked Emperor

26 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by feralpoet in becoming, break out, change, Creating, family, learning, movement, poems, poetry, release, song, words

≈ Comments Off on The naked Emperor

To what cost,

this silence?

Protecting normal, the naked Emperor,

who rots your bones of its mineral support,

your heart of its song,

your pelvis of its dancing motion,

your mouth of its natural speech.

Stop pretending.

And, with it, generations of loss.

Open the vault.

You may find yourself alone.

But the outcome

will be possession of your own soul.

Constellations on the ground

25 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, beauty, dark, honoring, nature, poems, poetry, receiving, weaving, welcoming, wonder

≈ Comments Off on Constellations on the ground

Constellations on the ground,

stars underfoot,

snow falling in dark morning

on upturned face,

waiting hair, open palms.

Greeting a wide universe in winter-

its hush and hibernation beckoning on

hidden animals waiting

waiting

for a silent moment to show themselves

as weather weaves a way.

Second Street Cafe

22 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by feralpoet in adventure, friends, movement, poems, poetry, tea

≈ Comments Off on Second Street Cafe

Horse sits in the corner

noticing possum hasn’t touched her tea.

Possum, meanwhile,

wonders about her pedigree.

Tortoise dozes in his shell,

tipping awkwardly toward ostrich’s tail,

when zebra waltzes in swishing his stripes

sending peacock for the door in utmost fright.

Such is a day at Second Street Cafe

with elephant missing and

rat wandering proudly off to play.

Order a cup and join the crew,

there’s a little something for all of you.

Her own

21 Sunday Jan 2018

Posted by feralpoet in adventure, aging, beauty, becoming, Body, break out, change, discomfort, freedom, honoring, learning, movement, pain, poems, poetry, welcoming

≈ 1 Comment

At forty

she felt seventy.

Experience’s weight

had sunk posts deep into the landscape of her being.

Ache and limitation, an undertow of fatigue,

confusion at the seeming permanence

of the uninvited, the resisted,

lead this human to take possession, fully-

and for the first time-

of a life unwritten, free of guarantees,

and her own.

Entirely her own.

Her landscape now is a garden,

loved and wanted, with posts that may disappear.

Or not.

With their origins recognized, appreciated,

and their presence finally respected,

perhaps a hammock will be slung between them

in honor of spring’s arrival.

Soft arc of hmmm

18 Thursday Jan 2018

Posted by feralpoet in poems, poetry, welcoming, words

≈ Comments Off on Soft arc of hmmm

A woman reading across the room,

and her soft arc of hmmm at words eliciting her song,

calls forth the bigger music of the library-

four blocks away, a sacred monolith of imagination.

“Libraries for All” declares a sign on the wall.

Yes, except for the drunks,

spoke a woman at the counter-

the police were just here.

I’m sure you see it all, I responded,

libraries are havens for the homeless.

Yes.

Warm. Dry. Open, lit, and cushioned.

Rest your weary bones. Pick up a book,

a newspaper, an image-heavy magazine.

This roof shelters whoever enters.

With or without the fortune or choice

of a place called home,

just best not to betray how many pints

are helping get you through the grey day.

Read on…

Gnarls & knots

09 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by feralpoet in aging, beauty, becoming, Creating, Immortal, nature, poems, poetry

≈ Comments Off on Gnarls & knots

Gnarls and knots-

twistings of difficulty and experience

train the tree toward ancient mastery.

R i n g s

spread in stilled ripples-

water’s character in wood.

Toes wrap in dark, salted earth below,

fingers stretch through blue air above.

In storm, drought and calm

echo countless ancestral voices

from forests long ago gone.

In the saddle

06 Saturday Jan 2018

Posted by feralpoet in adventure, becoming, break out, change, discomfort, honoring, learning, listen, movement, mystery, nature, poems, poetry, prayer, transition, wonder

≈ Comments Off on In the saddle

At a beginning,

with the closest solitary prayer being

“I don’t know,”

my hips work to keep the rest of me in the saddle.

Movements in the sky-

valley fog, and clouds weaving high through the hills-

live their nature in waves, currents, and vanishings,

grand teachings of the cycles of continual change.

Sometimes, I wish I knew.

But, unintentionally, artfully, that greatest illusion

has been set on the shelf-

a furry trickster friend

who flashes me a smile, and snaps his tail

at the most wicked, and absurd times.

I don’t know becomes

a delicate, gritty daily worship.

Trying to get home

03 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by feralpoet in adventure, courage, poems, poetry, the road, transition

≈ Comments Off on Trying to get home

Through the night, and every inch of its darkness,

you keep trying to get home.

Missing buses, the next being the last

before a no service emptiness of midnight.

And the priest you met was no priest behind that supermarket,

but a desperate man wearing inside out shirt

with black short sleeves and shabby collar.

Waiting, waiting, wanting and anxious

with one goal in mind,

standing alone at the bench eager

to get to the end of the line when you can start walking

a long stretch of highway

in the wee hours

to a home that no longer exists

yet is the one place to which you know the way.

← Older posts

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • November 2025
  • October 2025
  • September 2025
  • August 2025
  • July 2025
  • June 2025
  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • March 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2020
  • February 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • December 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • July 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014

Categories

  • About
  • abundance
  • adventure
  • aging
  • ancestors
  • anger
  • approaching
  • Autumn
  • Awareness
  • beauty
  • becoming
  • Body
  • break out
  • change
  • community
  • companion
  • confusion
  • connection
  • continuance
  • courage
  • crafting
  • craving
  • Creating
  • creation
  • dance
  • dark
  • daughter
  • death
  • Deliverance
  • departing
  • devotion
  • digging
  • discomfort
  • dissolution
  • distance
  • dread
  • dreaming
  • dreams
  • Earth
  • Elements
  • emotion
  • endings
  • eternal
  • Expanse
  • family
  • father
  • fear
  • fearlessness
  • fertile
  • Fire
  • flight
  • flood
  • food
  • Found
  • freedom
  • friends
  • generations
  • ghosts
  • giving
  • global
  • grace
  • gratitude
  • grief
  • growing
  • Healing
  • heart
  • history
  • home
  • honoring
  • Hope
  • human
  • Immortal
  • Infinite
  • Inspire
  • instinct
  • joy
  • land
  • language
  • laughter
  • learning
  • leaving
  • liberation
  • Life
  • light
  • listen
  • Loss
  • lost
  • Love
  • lovers
  • loving
  • medicine
  • monsoon
  • mother
  • motion
  • motionless
  • movement
  • mundane
  • Music
  • mystery
  • naked
  • names
  • nature
  • new
  • night
  • of sorts
  • offering
  • Opening
  • pain
  • peace
  • photos
  • play
  • poems
  • poetry
  • Power
  • prayer
  • presence
  • question
  • questions
  • quotations
  • rage
  • rain
  • ramblings
  • rebirth
  • receiving
  • release
  • return
  • ride
  • roughness
  • Run
  • Season
  • seasons
  • shame
  • Sight
  • silence
  • slow
  • snow
  • song
  • sound
  • spring
  • still
  • stillness
  • storm
  • story
  • strength
  • Summer
  • tea
  • thanks
  • the road
  • time
  • transformation
  • transition
  • travel
  • traveling
  • Uncategorized
  • undone
  • unlearning
  • violence
  • vision
  • visit
  • void
  • waking
  • walking
  • water
  • weaving
  • welcoming
  • wind
  • woman
  • wonder
  • words
  • work
  • world
  • young

Meta

  • Create account
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone
    • Join 429 other subscribers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar