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.
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.
09 Friday Sep 2016
know those times
when there’s nothing to hold on to?
but the brain tries,
oh boy does it try-
it clings to the past, to the future, to what is wanted, to what is feared, to what has been or may be lost,
to what ifs and oh shits and
waaaaait what just happened?
that’s when it’s clear:
throw up both hands
– high into the air –
the ride
has already begun
24 Wednesday Aug 2016
This cracked and dusty pain rested
in a distant corner
season upon season-
never gone,
napping at most-
waiting
for a fresh split
to draw bright blood.
Not to be resolved, or
fixed,
but lived
in
through
with
beyond.
Yet again, it is not mine
alone.
I live it for you, as
you for me.
A new light breaks
in the dark.
13 Wednesday Jul 2016
The season of talking grass brings rattlesnakes,
grasshoppers blooming out each foot fall,
the head of a rabbit left by a skilled carnivore-
this, and more,
among seed heads clapping in the wind.
Moisture snuck deep underground,
like the losing end of relating.
Still,
it’s
simply
promise
of fecundity yet to come.
25 Saturday Jun 2016
I have searched, reached,
spoken, cried, and delivered.
My arms have ached in fullness, emptiness
and longing,
my legs have quaked miles into the journey
with nowhere but onward
left to go.
Muscle blood bone
register waking
like petals opening toward light.
What I now carry will remain behind
in this daily offering
of God
back to God.
18 Saturday Jun 2016
I am a shooter.
In all the ways I hate myself, in all the ways I hate others,
in any destruction of life in which I partake,
in my cruelties and holding on to misunderstandings,
in any willful resistance to seeing difference as beautiful,
in my own brokenness, impatience, refusal to love,
I, too, am a shooter.
And how
may
my life-
this singular life-
be a devotion toward loving and mutual living
on this planet,
the one inhabitable wondrous place
we all share
and call home?
Born into violence and out of grace,
how may my breath move
from the one toward
the other…
With each day
I ask,
in the face of violence,
for grace.
29 Sunday May 2016
Come,
Enjoy this life while you have it.
Twisting guts or sunshine?
Nah, nah, twisting guts
and
sunshine,
the buried wriggle of new root,
a softening of shoulder and corner of lip,
a nagging thought, tremble of choice,
and a search for more.
More of this, of this!
The life pulling at your heavy heel
and
lifted brow in pure amusement.
Drop the weight-
it may not even be yours.
Direct that tender face
toward the sun-
allow light to bathe eyelash upon eyelash.
Bountiful plenty turns colors before you.
Bountiful plenty turns within you.
Come,
Enjoy this life
while you have it.
17 Tuesday May 2016
Young rattlesnake,
short chub and one rattle,
this day is dedicated to you.
Afternoon sun warms bare legs,
ferns stretch rootlets in wet shade,
cat licks paw pads,
and this heart pulses to new limits
of loving.
Every shedding of the skin adds
another rattle,
and a greater knowing
that less venom
is more.
15 Sunday May 2016
Were i
to reach for the stars
my pants would fall down.
Today requires earthly attentions.
Keeping up trousers may be
the ultimate action
while loftier desires
could knock me, particle by particle,
straight out of orbit.
Cupping a star in two small, mortal hands
must wait
until palms can remain steady
holding an infinitude of concentrated light.
Honoring
means discerning–
Here, fantasy. Here, reality.
With that slice we both
possess
the fullness of flourishing space.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 