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Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone

~ a wild and sacred journey

Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone

Category Archives: presence

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.

Talking with stones

27 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, listen, movement, nature, poems, poetry, presence, receiving

≈ Comments Off on Talking with stones

Talking with stones,,

Orb weaver builds ladders to the sky,

Screeching hawk tells me where I am,

and Vulture lands

large

to roost in his pine..

Still stones speak–

      I will build you a home

                   here

        every time you ask.

In shadow

18 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, dark, movement, night, poems, poetry, presence, receiving, wonder

≈ Comments Off on In shadow

Cold coffee

Footfalls in the dark

Walking nose into web

The scurry

A mosaic

Labyrinth allows both

Entry and Exit

and maybe only one

My hand is warm

It will find your shivering skin

Bring fire to blackness you fear 

Being alone is part of the mystery

Finding each other in shadow

A turn of the veil.

Hidden fire

17 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by feralpoet in courage, devotion, learning, listen, movement, poems, poetry, presence, strength

≈ Comments Off on Hidden fire

Sunrise after sunrise, 

invitation

to tend to the undeveloped parts,

the living but forgotten

blinded and crouching animals left

out in the cold.

Sidle up to crackling fire and

look softly- 

the shadow-dance and light castings and warmth,

ease a chronic, unnameable tension

nibbling at the corners of mind.

body is home

14 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, beauty, freedom, gratitude, peace, poems, poetry, presence, receiving, the road

≈ Comments Off on body is home

chasing light
entering shadow
more rises in the non-scape
than the known-scape.
strings become ropes become chains,
careful what you attach to
you’ll have to drag it alone.
if image and sound, sensation, scent
and a sip of watermelon juice with lime and mint
aren’t plenty,
how heavy we all become.
time’s short,
selling freedom and wild soul, long.
with camera, notebook and #2 pencil
these steps brighten.
heart finds nourishment in embodied moments.
body is, through it all, home.

Lose yourself

25 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, beauty, becoming, courage, naked, poems, poetry, presence, wonder

≈ Comments Off on Lose yourself

Lose yourself.

Scare every inauthentic particle

right out 

of your limitless sky.

Then you’ll see

what is truly, brilliantly yours

creates awe-inducing sunsets

upon divinity’s canvas.

Adrift

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, becoming, courage, discomfort, freedom, gratitude, listen, movement, poems, poetry, presence, the road, transition, wonder

≈ Comments Off on Adrift

Adrift,

alone and wandering…

time to tend closely.

Fear rises with groundlessness-

unanswered questions

become the new earth to tread.

Being nowhere

requires patience.

Patience, the bone builder,

the strength bringer,

the knowing one;

She who comes to a whisper

yet stays only with grunts.

Approach softly 

and keep your mental seat.

Carving pathways demands

sustained effort.

Laughter rises upon landing

in the open arms of the unknown-

we deceive ourselves if we think

it’s ever any different.

i do not forfeit

23 Saturday May 2015

Posted by feralpoet in becoming, death, poems, poetry, presence, transition

≈ Comments Off on i do not forfeit

rock and water and sky,

stone and salt and wind.

if I wear skulls

they are not for your eyes to fondle-

like the bones I steep 

in nutrient-rich broth

i do not forfeit all my secrets.

pushing for the mystery

will bring plastic and cliche,

which your senses will detect

as truth.

in falsity,

protection.

Blow her alive

15 Friday May 2015

Posted by feralpoet in abundance, devotion, learning, listen, movement, nature, poems, poetry, presence, release

≈ Comments Off on Blow her alive

Wind scours Skyros,

casting off whatever doesn’t blow her alive.

Roosters call into her,

releasing ritual morning battle cries-

two voices, 

one earthless,

one earthbound,

twist together in a marriage of grand and minute.

Cats own the streets below her gaping arms,

molding themselves into stone hollows,

low and restful,

knowing that to cling is to miss the beckoning..

Open opposite windows

and your room will fill with dervishes.

Drop it all,

unclasp fingers and release hold-

Spirit sings into nothing less.

Bubo

29 Wednesday Apr 2015

Posted by feralpoet in becoming, dreams, listen, nature, poems, poetry, presence, receiving, release, transition, wonder

≈ Comments Off on Bubo

Into the pine

great horned owl flies

and rests, for a time, at twilight.

The same tree

in which you dreamed,

long ago,

owls stood watch-

one guardian facing southwest waters,

another the northeast ridge line..

What you dream is busy

dreaming you.

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