14 Tuesday Nov 2017
Being caught by gratitude
between yes and no, by was and is,
between having and not,
brings the dance.
Heart suddenly solid, present and strong
like stone, not ice, with loving-
goodbye floods body with needed nectar
for not an awayness or an isolation,
neither a grip nor a grab,
not a mine or a missing or a fright,
but a moving of grace
onward.
05 Thursday Oct 2017
A coral bell hanging
brightly
amongst its neighbors,
a bear trundling along
alone,
a cricket sounding an evening concert
loudly
in the kitchen,
each, perfectly, to its nature.
Were the bear turning this way and that
wondering
how he looks in his bearness, his gait,
his hunger,
or the coral bell wishing mightily
it could be a lily,
or the cricket seizing upon the desire to stomp
like an elephant through jungle-
Where would we be?
Thankful to the trueness of things
may we seek only
our own magnificent, and fleeting, natures.
28 Thursday Sep 2017
Stars, warm wind, Morning rises
with purple sky.
Foucault pages rest in my lap yet
song of hummingbird through open window
means infinitely more.
A feeding tree- one plump with fruit and tiniest birds-
is black silhouette waking
into day’s light.
03 Monday Apr 2017
Darkness, silence, brightness of stars,
silhouetted tree crowns,
the beauty of five a.m.
I’m not sure why we forget,
so readily forget,
the preciousness we participate in.
These troubles,
the wasting, threatening, destroying-
maybe turning ourselves right-side-round toward
birthing light
relies upon one task:
Remembering.
01 Saturday Apr 2017
Longing comes with the light,
and sometimes leaves with it.
That’s how it goes when
nobody’s looking.
But a quivering dog needs a soft gaze
to make it real.
Gentle,
gentle with your eyes
and any movement-
this pup can’t take a stare
or a jumping out of your seat to say hello.
Fill a small dish by the door and,
when its brown eyes and cracked nose part
the hillside grasses, sit visibly
but out of the way.
This little one is hungry.
More than that, though,
loving.
10 Friday Mar 2017
If suffering is the path laid down for us, by us
stone by stone,
How might we love
not only each one but
the trying burden of laying them
on the surface of this Earth
(could as easily be the moon. still, it’s not)
for our own feet to walk upon?
If meaning is found
simply
in carrying our suffering
in devotion
– not as martyr, but pilgrim
with full unknowing of why,
or even how-
to the making of a life,
by virtue of its having been given,
then
might we lean into the expectations
life holds for us
and do right by them
by our own true Selves-
that Essence buried
beneath all the heaviness requiring our backs, hearts, hands
which knows what it is
to burn brightly
for no reason
what
so
ever?
.
.
* with thanks to Viktor Frankl
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.
31 Tuesday Jan 2017
Eyes heavy from reading news,
a seemingly apocalyptic caravan of events
and, yet, spirited fires light here, there, and there-
in me, in you, over the next hill where soft glow flickers.
Hours on the phone, speaking up, speaking out, thanking,
and yet another heart lifts during great challenge.
Tend to that fire consistently,
have water always near to temper and moisten,
eat of earthen foods to slow, slow
into the long journey ahead.
All are precious in this global transformation,
take another’s hand in yours in pure reminder.
01 Sunday Jan 2017
The new year could be a prism,
a prison,
an ache and an embrace.
We just never know,
until at once a soft wind settles and we do.
Offer a kindly nod to the dark,
and an opening of arms to the light-
both will accompany us the whole way;
it is our work to acknowledge and learn from
the full spectrum every day.
May we remember to create Beauty
and move skillfully as we can
with the cinnamon dance of Mystery..
And, please, mind the tenderness of little toes.
30 Sunday Oct 2016
What if we were as fierce
about seeing
finding
knowing beauty
as ugliness, fear, and lack?
Would we not become greater protectors
of the overlooked and precious?
Would our focus not
change
from what we want to avoid
to that asking
for further creation?
From being barefoot on rain-soaked earth
while sun breaks clouds overhead,
to cinnamon in coffee,
the perfect heat of a shower,
sustained note of a well-played cello,
to strangers reaching for each other’s hands,
and friends who have plenty to eat,
a car that starts,
the woodpecker we’d like to curse
for waking us out of sleep-only-
its tapping brought us a view of the sunrise,
and places in existence where peoples
are honored and heard.
Wouldn’t the goodness flood us
even if
nothing else could we sense but
the beating of our own heart-
wouldn’t miracles fill our days?
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 