Category Archives: listen

Lit by fires

13 Wednesday Aug 2025

Posted by in ancestors, dreaming, generations, history, listen, poems, poetry, transformation

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While reaching forward, we’ve no knowing

how far goes the reaching back,

our days lit by fires long ago.

The generations that birthed us here,

inside this present day,

the losses they carried and blessings

they bestowed.

What vision is ours, what vision has been given?

The living breath spiraling us ahead,

steam engine of our days,

extends behind us on tracks buried

by histories untold.

Ancestors are quivering the roots,

make no mistake.

We are not here just for ourselves.

Take ears to the stones, stories be talking.

Reconvene

27 Sunday Jul 2025

Posted by in ancestors, community, connection, history, honoring, listen, movement, poems, poetry, presence

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Who is out there,

ghosts or our imaginings of them?

The spirits in flight, down the chimney,

behind the pizza place, and definitely in the alley bar across the way,

are curious. Mischievous.

Scandalous if they get drunk.

Not sure the woman in the corner

really lost control of her own lifted skirt–

winds, spirits, not so different.

Flowers are to be given, and spirits, yes, for the spirits,

they calm and hold them to the grounds of the unresolved,

no longer drifting, no longer so thirsty,

finally recognized, and in place– for living, for dead,

with earth in the holy middle,

to reconvene.

You..are..

23 Monday Jun 2025

Posted by in liberation, light, listen, poems, poetry

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Gah! I give myself away,

to their judgments,

their expectations,

their views and assumptions.

Silly cat! Bat those off the table,

paw pad after paw pad after whip claw..

We aren’t here to please them, to afford them,

to fit some pre-ordained shape.

Twist as you wish,

reach as is your nature,

climb, sink, thrive–all in the asking,

the taking.

Denying is reduction,

agreeing without agreement, sacrilege.

Nomad, go fly.

Maybe no one will understand you,

but you do–keep that scent in your nose

and follow it.

You

are

wise.

A little

18 Saturday Nov 2023

Posted by in community, listen, loving, movement, offering, poems, poetry, prayer, presence, rebirth, receiving, return, stillness, welcoming

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We save each other’s lives 

a little

every day.

Follow a pointing finger,

find the child.

Hear a cry never

bellowed,

resolve the ache.

Listen through hands,

to a quaking,

a breaking

of a heart yet again,

and turnings of ages will echo

through bone.

These are callings

answered by few.

Let the unmoved move

with slightest

kindest

deepening

touch,

reach stars buried

and waiting

for a return to dark sky.

We save each other’s lives

a little

every day.

In this is more

than enough.

Talk, talk, talk

26 Wednesday Apr 2023

Posted by in listen, Love, poems, poetry, presence, silence, slow, song, sound

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While endless talk,

noise of commercialism, opinion,

celebrity,

fills too many spaces,

when chatter closer to home gets

incessant

remember

that is sound of a disturbed heart.

And we’ve far, far too many of those.

Step silently back

and recall what tender talk,

a creek rolling through, touching

sides, stones, roots

speaks of–

its landscape of blood, tissue and bone–

that which sustains, holds and guides it

along the journey.

When the child enters, or one of the countless

yet to be heard,

please,

listen.

Robins do not sing

for nothing.

The wind is up

09 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by in listen, movement, poems, poetry, receiving, story, traveling, wind

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The Wind is up

and her voice big. She sweeps

and dips, grabbing and forcing flee–

her humor boundless as her movements.

She carries tale from far, far away,

distance being her spirit flying,

and your ears are the intended settling place

for the riches of that unique story.

However we have cuffed our own ears after

having them cuffed,

we need remind them gently,

open,

yes, open–

gifts are coming and

we must prepare.

Morning birds

12 Saturday Nov 2022

Posted by in community, flight, light, listen, movement, poems, poetry

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Chittering morning birds pull me from the page–

eyes move from word toward sound,

where their light hopping feet bring me to flight

from bare branch, through 17 degree air,

to bark-covered lattice above the front door.

Frost, like gold flakes, falls from their trail in sunlight.

They have such great conversations.

Wind blows a chorus

21 Thursday Apr 2022

Posted by in abundance, community, honoring, learning, listen, loving, movement, Music, offering, poems, poetry, wind

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Wind blows a chorus in the mountains.

I’d forgotten how the trees sing in rounds,

sometimes whispering,

sneaking a song, suddenly, behind you

then switching far out in front, down the hardscrabble

with its abundant life of stone and tiny leafings,

scales and flitting feathers.

I wonder about the songs echoed

from those not swishing needles and branches.

What part of the rondo do our human ears miss?

How sweet to offer our voices back

to the heart of the mountain

by joining in its steep and generous sound.

The open door

12 Saturday Feb 2022

Posted by in change, community, growing, home, honoring, learning, listen, Love, poems, poetry, transition, unlearning, wonder, work

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Somehow it is February and 79 degrees.

What a wonder.

We have entered a new world, mostly of our own making.

Turning back is a fantasy holding some together,

imagining it isn’t happening holding others.

Our earth mama talks with us, through us, always–

she shows more loudly by the year

the honest consequences of our actions.

Birds sing loudly on the other side of the open door,

more kinds than usually heard in chorus.

They bathe bathe bathe and chitter, twinkling songs..

A magical day,

yet strange.

Prayer flies through the open door that we all learn to listen,

listen and praise, find ourselves on our knees ready

for change that serves Life.

Languages

31 Sunday Oct 2021

Posted by in learning, light, listen, nature, poems, poetry, return, silence, wind, words, work

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I keep checking for messages.

They aren’t there, of course.

What sends messages these days

doesn’t use the language I grew up learning.

How many languages don’t we speak because of those

we had to,

pinning words down with force for

efficiency

exactness

precision

accuracy

literalness lopping off the Song of the universe?

There is light, instead, what trees eat,

reflecting on the full belly of blood-red

garden pot,

and wind talking the leaves high,

high up the towering eucalyptus.

Clapping faeries have flitting epochs to share,

and they await those willing to listen

to languages bodies understand.

More quiet than I yet can hold

is the ear that can translate for me.

God, I know what I would like to be

in service to what is far greater~

please, show the winding way…