03 Friday Jan 2025
Posted in Deliverance, poems, poetry
≈ Comments Off on Gave way
Frozen beads drop on fallen snow,
an unusual morning music.
Overnight, the roof of the shed
gave way,
resting now on domed forehead of the horno.
Deer turn to stare at my presence.
Ponderosas, no longer white,
burn their reserved green.
Today’s another passing without any humans,
I continue listening.
02 Thursday Mar 2023
Posted in becoming, change, Deliverance, movement, mystery, poems, poetry, unlearning, wind
≈ Comments Off on Changing the seer
Changing the seer,
the ground beneath and
circulation within,
in asking for this, I surrender,
for candle-flicker
moments.
Yet the moments expand
as a stranglehold of my brain loosens.
Yesterday,
bald eagle sailed–
she really does sail–
through currents of air unseen
while held aloft close to unmoving.
I’ve much to unlearn, hands of habit
to release,
both mine and not.
Ever more is asked of us to become
what we are intended to become.
Watching the slow wave wings
of white bodied, brown feathered eagle,
a glimpse of what magic surrounds us,
the Spirit of which we are made,
up-lifts me too,
reminding me of the spring that never runs dry.
06 Friday Jul 2018
The swallow dip of joy,
swift arc and cut through bright sky,
has been on lengthy migration
to lands unnamed.
Yet the time allotted here, however long,
confined in concrete, noise, requirement and excess
may finally break me of this place.
What follows out
of the daily abrasions of adjusting
while not giving everything and nothing away
may open space enough for that swallow
to return truly
home.
17 Saturday Mar 2018
Grabbing at her skirts with reaching manly hands
uninvited
toward a desired body-
not hers (the particular) but any-
that flipped the switch, dramatically,
from her naive Oh I’m Wanted
to the real He Thinks He Can Take Whatever He Wants,
and she wheels around, out of his greedy, cruel grip
leaps out the window onto a roofline she knows like a cat
and stops doubting her worth, while learning
to doubt his,
and smiles with bare feet hugging the tile crest
of a building she’s perfectly willing to leave, bearing
a trail of grief so light it brings only
a rush of relief.
08 Wednesday Mar 2017
I always entered and
exited
through side doors.
quietly.
..slipping in or out with as few eyes following
or ears noticing
or minds rippling
as possible.
Now,
however,
that I’ve bought my freedom
I will be using the front door
as often
as loudly
as visibly
as this once-silent spirit
needs be.
And some houses will never
be catching sight of me
again.
17 Saturday Dec 2016
It wasn’t through torn paper
blackened shoelace
or scuffed wall
that I found You.
It wasn’t the constant push
circulating fear
or I-must-do-betters..
not even the inch between
the sidewalk and me
plus a bruised knee.
Not exactly.
Add the non-starts,
regimented dreams,
what’s-wrong-with-me’s,
attempts to fit when fitting fed starvation,
and the broken heart- birthday after birthday-
with one shattering
nearly beyond recovery
that, finally,
I found You.
The joke being
that I’ve carried You in me
since before the first sunrise.
Except now,
when I say hello
I can hear You answer.
16 Sunday Oct 2016
30 Friday Sep 2016
A rock stands in your path.
A big one.
It’s the same damned rock you’ve walked smack into countless times,
decade after decade,
despite the changing terrain.
You walk the mapless territory, silently, wondering… how on earth?
Do you go around?
Climb over?
Finally hammer the blasted thing to pieces?
Your choice, always.
Fun part is-
this time
your decision may be unlike
any other.
09 Saturday Jul 2016
Were I to cull a story,
cut off its wings to still its tongue,
would you be any safer from the past?
The chills walking your spine are not
exiting belief but
sashes and
passages of truth.
Words have no allegiance
once the fire is struck,
and winged shadow escapes, up,
out, beyond-
toward a second
a third
an eleventh
pulsing heart
with ears to hear.
Practice your listening-
what you fear most may be
the balm of the deep.
18 Saturday Jun 2016
I am a shooter.
In all the ways I hate myself, in all the ways I hate others,
in any destruction of life in which I partake,
in my cruelties and holding on to misunderstandings,
in any willful resistance to seeing difference as beautiful,
in my own brokenness, impatience, refusal to love,
I, too, am a shooter.
And how
may
my life-
this singular life-
be a devotion toward loving and mutual living
on this planet,
the one inhabitable wondrous place
we all share
and call home?
Born into violence and out of grace,
how may my breath move
from the one toward
the other…
With each day
I ask,
in the face of violence,
for grace.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 