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.
20 Friday Jan 2017
A silence is being called.
Not
a silence of submission, or
apathy,
shame or forgetfulness– but
an emboldened silence,
one for hearing voices drifting
through cracks
and memory.
Listen.
Dear God, Listen-
a new way demands a creativity
well outside the bounds of what has come before.
This silence is gentle, receptive,
immensely strong.
Recall, from the depths,
how it is yours, ours, and
not.
Bones speak, be certain
they are included.
09 Wednesday Nov 2016
Black
is every color
crammed
in space too tight for light.
Our sickness
produces severe symptoms;
Projecting our own shadows on others
will keep us from finding our way through.
With the box now open,
the last of its contents spilled
into collective view,
comes the greatest need yet
for- yes- willingness and
a strong stomach (as it writhes),
but also
a softening of our individual, concreted ways and
an enlivening of curiosity and connection.
Where we go from here
is up
to all of us.
16 Sunday Oct 2016
30 Friday Sep 2016
A rock stands in your path.
A big one.
It’s the same damned rock you’ve walked smack into countless times,
decade after decade,
despite the changing terrain.
You walk the mapless territory, silently, wondering… how on earth?
Do you go around?
Climb over?
Finally hammer the blasted thing to pieces?
Your choice, always.
Fun part is-
this time
your decision may be unlike
any other.
22 Thursday Sep 2016
Being an untamed tributary
of a river whose origin reaches far
into depths unkown
brings twists of bramble,
leaping fish,
frog and cricket symphonies,
bats dipping low in twilight-
when settling into quiet lulls.
In rugged young churning-
escaping water
pulls earth, boulder, tree to itself
as passion builds with heavy rains,
filling banks,
carving hungry routes,
chewing civilized lands and
renewing plots left withering.
This tributary is this and more,
trading nothing away
in honor of its nature–
wild, strong and unpossessing.
28 Sunday Aug 2016
Being sculpted
means
being thrown,
as clay,
first kneaded- no bubbles – then
spun
well beyond dizzy,
cut,
and fired to degrees
scorching
even by shuddering imagination
if
your aim is to be a
cup,
vase,
bowl,
holy space ripe
for filling,
able to offer solace, pleasure,
delight,
beauty, compassion,
ease,
and round reflections of sky.
Don’t hold on.
Be here.
14 Saturday May 2016
An open chair awaits you.
Clearing it of a tumbling-height stack
of NOs
took some doing.
Approximately four decades worth.
And now that the rich, carved wood and velvet
of that high-backed chair holds nothing of mine,
there’s space for you at the table.
Admittedly, food hasn’t been cooked…
Uhm tea, however,
I’m ready to commit to.
Candle, flame and flowers adorn
ridged lengths of milled tree
where our cups may sit.
Breath hasn’t yet dropped to belly-
waiting on your arrival out here in the valley
has caught it between Yes and Oh shit.
A place here, with me,
at a royal oak table welcoming us both
is the stretch of generosity and strength
born thus far.
09 Monday May 2016
the first memory,
a fear of ghosts,
might choke you in your sleep.
wake up.
one step forward with a little foot
and another,
and another with your foot, not so small-
recall your body
to pierce darkness inhabited
by the terrifying,
and purposely forgotten.
wake up!
repossess what’s yours, kid.
throw your little arms out into night’s gullet,
rid the rotting presence rising
from beyond the grave.
we’ll approach together.
your journey neither begins
nor ends
trembling in a spindle bed
below third floor timbers,
its vacancy above met
by broad staircase
channeling
down
what no one else will face.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 