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Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone

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Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone

Category Archives: peace

If your love

20 Monday Dec 2021

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, aging, break out, death, Love, loving, new, peace, poems, poetry, shame, the road, wonder

≈ Comments Off on If your love

If your love has courted you

winding and strong

to the door of Death, again, again,

ya kinda gotta wonder- – what

in

the

hell?

(An exclamation ! floowing from that question

seems most appropriate

but not in sting of a shaming judgement, No, no,

as it needs usher in a tender resignation,

an emollient of wondering in which

you slip a hand beneath that tiny bird,

approach slowly with soft eyes to ask,

how, oh how, did this loyal heart of mine learn

to love like that, to love those with inclination,

without qualm,

to do those things they’ve done?)

A new snail trail, steady and true, awaits

in this, the second half of life . . .

Ancient and known

08 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by feralpoet in break out, community, Creating, honoring, nature, peace, poems, poetry, transition, work

≈ Comments Off on Ancient and known

What name can be given

to soul hunger for nature,

for bodily starvation of slow rhythms ancient

and known?

Waking, sleeping, sunrise, moonset,

yes

even in the most stricken times we can find ourselves there

part of the ever-larger cosmos,

not pinned tight to trivia and misbehaviors.

But

skin suffers thirst for soil-

this hard concrete place rebounding with noise

can’t feed what does not eat the civilized.

Sit down with me, here,

let’s break sidewalk together,

chip away until earth smiles again at sky-

silent seeds await their patient growth into trees.

The cookie jar

02 Thursday Feb 2017

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, beauty, change, Fire, joy, light, Love, peace, poems, poetry, story

≈ Comments Off on The cookie jar

Somebody’s got their hands in the cookie jar

to take every last one.

And ain’t nobody having it.

Because it goes like this~

One for you, and for you, and for you and you and you.

Anybody missed?

Oh yes, please join us,

your stories are encouraged. 

Here, warm your toes 

by this joyous, abundant fire.

Not too much to sing

11 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, gratitude, joy, movement, nature, peace, poems, poetry, transition

≈ Comments Off on Not too much to sing

I want the peace of the dark

and first mad blushings of light,

silent cloud bellies bursting orange

and a sky gone turquoise.

I want the bare of my feet,

upside-downness of skin,

pressing moist, giving earth

and birds to flit past in dim cool.

There’s not too much to sing,

only just enough

to recreate forever.

Into the black pocket

16 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, beauty, becoming, change, courage, devotion, discomfort, Inspire, learning, listen, peace, poems, poetry, receiving, release, vision

≈ Comments Off on Into the black pocket

I reach softly into the black pocket,
wrestle with butterflies-
these are prayers
and this is Mary Poppins’ bag.
What arises hasn’t feet
or end
or concrete idea to control comfort.
This is roll of tongue,
whisker of remembrance,
waft of cinnamon from grandma’s kitchen long ago.
Your divinities are found here,
as are everyone’s.
We enter alone,
exit the same,
but billions of hands reach
to hold us in between if
we choose
to let them.

What might peace look like?

15 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by feralpoet in change, dark, fearlessness, freedom, gratitude, honoring, listen, peace, poems, poetry, wonder, work

≈ Comments Off on What might peace look like?

With blood running
in all our veins,
couldn’t we wonder instead
what we have in common?
We look to the skin, to the beliefs,
to what keeps us apart,
yet
hearts still entrain,
breathing seeks outer rhythms,
laughter lights eyes like the moon above..
Birth, death,
we share the same doorways
for a brief span here
together
on Earth.
What might peace look like
if we search
for what connects us
in the web of creation?
Our time is short,
the effects of war long.
Could we meet on a dark street
unafraid
and mutually glad for the passing
of a stranger?

The first drops to hit

02 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, beauty, becoming, freedom, gratitude, movement, nature, peace, poems, poetry

≈ Comments Off on The first drops to hit

Yellow finches are preparing for rain.

While quick sky changes cast shifting light,

the fountain hypnotizes with song.

A ceramic mug of black tea rests on a knee,

and imagined scenes play out in my head.

With the wind tossing strands of hair,

I realize,

staying for the first drops to hit

may be the baptism I’ve been waiting for.

Creation flickers

23 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, devotion, Inspire, listen, peace, poems, poetry, wonder, work

≈ Comments Off on Creation flickers

we open,
creation flickers appreciative eyes
knowing it may express itself through us
and bring a union of hearts-
small reminders of what binds us to life, place, and
one another.
hear the songs
of light, color, sound and page,
whose voices crack through lies
separating us
from the unchanging.

After all

28 Monday Sep 2015

Posted by feralpoet in beauty, courage, listen, peace, poems, poetry, presence, Sight

≈ Comments Off on After all

Look.

Beauty,

she encircles you,

informs and

works through you.

Forgetting,

while wringing hands and fighting lonely tears,

that you are in relationship

with every stone you stumble on in chance meeting,

the dusty path that hugs your shoes,

the doves sweeping low overhead,

the desk that absorbs each press of your pen,

the books whose pages capture your breath,

the ceiling that gathers searching late-night stares,

the chipped cup,

its divot a place your tongue seeks,

socks he wore, but just the once,

a scarf she knit you, knowing full-well your love of the yarn,

and the animal responsible for it,

that patch on your shin that showed up, what, a decade ago now?,

let alone the scratch on the car that saved your life..

Forgetting builds a wasteland.

Come.

Sit.

Look around you.

We are, after all,

in this together.

the twisting road

02 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by feralpoet in learning, movement, nature, peace, poems, poetry, the road

≈ Comments Off on the twisting road

Drove the twisting road,

wound blind curves,

to somewhere once called home-

a place sweetness and tragedy meet,

a location of extremes.

Towering oaks with lobed leaf arch

toward golden grass whose seed heads nod,

obscuring the path bobcat walks.

Sky,

in blueness or star,

remains sharp.

Flies enter nose and ears,

fiery poison oak berries.

Frost will make its claim,

will lay this landscape bare.

Returning marks a turning.

The hole I’ve fallen in,

with earthen walls solid and cool,

holds today’s bones and muscle.

Eyes train upward,

restful,

knowing, this time, the visit

washes memories out

without carrying me away.

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