Category Archives: Love

What has sounded

08 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by in community, home, honoring, learning, Loss, Love, nature, poems, poetry, the road, work

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What has sounded

to others

like endless gripe and grating unfinished complaint,

a chosen rageful fixation,

certain Pathology…

has been body and mind finding its way

through toxic darkness.

Nature being destroyed by humans

in blind arrogance and greed,

consumption wired into how many “likes” and “followers”–

those empty signs of worth and feedings of narcissism–

in ever-widening circles,

in rapid speed, increasing.

How.

How does a body and mind adjust to such devastation?

To home being pillaged and raped?

To the Temple filling with piles of trash,

masses of people,

noise and excrement along every path?

There is no adaptation to that.

There is constant heartache

and anger.

With home now being just another thing for sale

and silence and solitude disappeared,

what illness have we invited through our collective front door

in exchange for one more meaningless photo

gone viral?

It’s time we spend time on the virus

we have ignored

for entertainment.

Woman, shave your head

08 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by in beauty, Body, break out, home, honoring, learning, Love, movement, pain, poems, poetry, prayer, strength

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Got long hair?

Got any hair?

Woman, shave your head.

And collect the assumptions hoisted upon you,

the ones you weren’t quite certain,

but now you know,

have been dragging you down.

Belly scraping the road.

Woman, got long hair?

Shave your head, and learn how confused

perceptions and expectations of you

are.

Where you may have been pretty, attractive,

desired,

suddenly the sight of that is gone

and people, most people, don’t have a clue

how to respond, how to comprehend–

But you were pretty.

You were attractive.

You were desirable.

Watch them turn their eyes away, unable

to look at you.

Hear them,

hating what they see and can’t understand,

say, “You look so…different.”

The least offensive, yet unasked for, comment

they can make.

Woman, got long hair?

Shave your head,

and discover what assumptions shove you low, in place,

a shallow ditch where you have been put.

Some react in adoration,

others with titillation, however briefly,

or with shock envy disbelief disgust.

Woman,

if ever you didn’t fully get it,

not in the tautness of your sinews,

how the appearance of a woman is believed

to belong

to the public,

that it is open invitation to

critique judgement opinion desire and rejection,

stick a personal act of transformation,

like dynamite,

within social view.

Woman,

if you want to know not

what others want you to be

but the stuff you’re made of,

Go,

Shave your head.

Where is your Beauty?

31 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by in abundance, beauty, becoming, Found, Love, mystery, poems, poetry, welcoming

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Where is your Beauty?

Surely not

in the new shoes, fresh haircut,

expensive manufactured perfume or

endless product

product

product

pushed, hawked, manipulated into your brain

tinkering with insecurities secret and unspoken.

Your Beauty,

your Beauty! exists. Period. No one sells it to you,

convinces you of it, holds it over you, or

wants you solely because of it-

that sort is no kin of Beauty, but mere poison.

The posh tie, synthetic cologne, hippest beard or band-

they’ll not birth Beauty either.

No mask is She. Neither bought nor sold,

She is spark, and giggle, dance step and honest stumble.

She is inspiration,

your in-spiring moment to moment.

Nurture these and Beauty rises, rises,

a river filling thirsty banks longing

to sing her praises.

The clay we’re given

15 Friday Jun 2018

Posted by in abundance, beauty, becoming, courage, Creating, devotion, Infinite, Love, poems, poetry, wonder, work

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Someone told me today,

“You have great energy.”

Someone else

turned out to be my middle school literature teacher.

Another day, perhaps, I’m terrible,

and a familiar stranger might not be

who I think at all.

Ground is uneven.

Earthquakes come, volcanoes blow.

A life is a creative act,

parceled out in retrospect,

birthed forward through chaos.

Unformed to the end

each of us shapes the clay we’re given.

The world will think

whatever it thinks,

what matters is speaking God straight back

into God’s own ear.

Re-weave

16 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in abundance, adventure, beauty, becoming, devotion, honoring, listen, Love, loving, movement, night, poems, poetry, receiving, release, weaving

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Maybe it feels like standing forever in a head-high river current,

yearning.

Yet, igniting moments drop the belly

and lurch steps-

songs jump into hiccups, the nights being

so long.

And the syrup drip into sinews brought about by

–fill in the blank here–

well, if that thing, that other

is not what it’s really about,

what more enticing invitation could possibly surface

asking you

to re-weave yourself

into God?

Onward

14 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by in abundance, beauty, Body, devotion, gratitude, honoring, Love, loving, movement, mystery, poems, poetry, receiving, release, strength, transition, wonder

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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.

To the fierce woman

11 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in abundance, aging, beauty, becoming, Body, break out, change, courage, fearlessness, freedom, joy, Love, loving, mystery, poems, poetry, presence, welcoming

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To the fierce woman–
not the girl, whatever the age, trying to look pretty,
to be nice,
not the girl in the woman’s body aiming
to be desired, seductive, adored, heroic, cool, mysterious,
No, no-
To the fierce woman who knows the song of her own heart’s beat,
who cares not about how she appears, but about who she is,
who isn’t reaching for the next best outfit, witty comeback, title or
right answer–
To the fierce woman who walks how she walks,
talks how she talks,
ages as she brilliantly ages,
sees how she sees and
loves how she loves,
my God, Welcome.
Welcome to this world.
You
are
needed.

Go forth

19 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in abundance, adventure, beauty, Body, change, Love, lovers, loving, Music, poems, poetry, wonder

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Did you ever fall in love for the first time?

If not, I can tell you-

you’ll be changed.

The wind will be his kiss when he’s not

by your side,

colors will reach out with incredible loving hands,

the sweetness of a peach will impassion

every last one of your taste buds,

and music will have been composed, amazingly,

just for you..

Yes,

yes, that and more.

But that’s not what will change you-

not quite.

What will, however, rearrange your particles

after both the elation and inevitable suffering rip through,

what will wrap you up, enrapture your heart,

sing you to sleep, and bring you to greet each rising sun

with gratitude,

is a knowledge taught by your own body

that another’s adoration is not only not necessary

but that it was you who had to fall in love with you

all along.

But I don’t mean to ruin the game-

go forth

and fall.

The beauty of five a.m.

03 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in abundance, beauty, becoming, devotion, Infinite, light, Love, nature, poems, poetry, vision, welcoming, wonder

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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.

This little one

01 Saturday Apr 2017

Posted by in devotion, friends, light, lost, Love, loving, movement, poems, poetry, welcoming, wonder

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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.