01 Wednesday Apr 2015
In your cringe
and bite
following another’s ignorant words,
pain.
Not the pain of a current slash of the knife
but of a gash inflicted long before self and other
stepped far enough apart to decide, even,
if they wanted to dance.
Knowing requires time,
recognition of habit a road winding into distant hills-
the shape your tears will mimic.
May strength and a giggle well up
along with each salty drop.
30 Monday Mar 2015
When rhesus monkeys come
to Dharamsala,
the cedars speak louder their wordsong
and blue green saturates sky
made milky by rains.
Taking coffee at a bistro table and
looking up to catch eyes looking down–
Moonpeak behind and unwalked horizon ahead–
wedding pen to paper becomes
a most important act.
15 Sunday Mar 2015
extending a hand
for a body not there,
a person
you thought you left behind
but, in sleep, forgot..
snapping awake,
heart speeds
until you find ground again,
the flicker of light-
even in
gone
beauty arrives.
laughter sweeps the dusty doorway
for friendly toes-
yours definitely,
another’s,
maybe.
either way, the path
is clean and clear
10 Tuesday Mar 2015
Such daring as this,
as this,
the brilliant awakening of spirit to form,
the recollection of our song,
song of the universe.
We clear the way,
set fire to the brush, roll boulders away,
push dead, fallen trees back from the path-
We face our fears,
welcome and dismantle them,
in a full-bodied knowing
of our own magnificence.
23 Monday Feb 2015
When the words
fall
on deaf ears,
I wonder, what’s it like in there?
Static?
A song on replay?
My sound doesn’t tingle the switch,
the spectrum of frequencies a foreign language.
I used to scream to be heard.
I used to hand out the code
to what others thought was encrypted.
Now, the fire behind these eyes
that licked the ceiling high
if I couldn’t get through,
has real wind to respond to.
My lips rest
when the noiseless collision
of intent
reaches my own deafness.
18 Wednesday Feb 2015
Looping letters in pen,
my fingers contain dances
that my tongue is meant to spin.
But, without them, you wouldn’t hear me
over mountain ranges and
thousands of miles eastward.
This instrument will take the sounds,
twirling and swaying in my arms,
and transmit them through your eyes.
There’s a hunger that crumbs of words
could never stave.
Grasp.
Hold.
In stillness,
you know possession is impossible.
Let’s look not at one another, but
to the approaching terrain
wrapped in shadows of dropping moonlight.
The landscape will explain every twinge
these small dances can only hint at
through dusty, fading footsteps…
03 Tuesday Feb 2015
I’m being remade.
Deft hands tear the fabric of me,
without wasted movement
or hesitation:
clean lines, no dangling threads,
and fluid rearrangement of
color
pattern
texture.
These quilt pieces,
cloth made of the stars,
the ocean floor’s curvy sand,
flocks of birds,
tree bark,
sweepings of sky at sunrise
the yearning blue of twilight, and
the sparkle in eyes when the heart sings through,
a unison growl,
and hum of any satisfying meal with friends.
Stitches holding me together dissolved, long ago,
what few held were torn-
quick snap and done.
When this is finished, this blanket,
or cape,
or kite,
or skin,
I won’t need it.
Until then,
I thank the tailor
sewing me back together,
my cloak the feathers of great
and able-bodied raptors,
the slipperiness of fish nestled in close rock caves,
the ambling walk of bear, his fur
a submission to all
he isn’t.
26 Monday Jan 2015
Luminaries,
the light-gatherers who bring us ecstatic pause,
the people who’ve cultivated exemplary skill
at recognizing, creating and embodying
divine beauty,
honor the workings of unwanted pain,
their discovery founded on its gifts
of transformation-
that which possesses the hands of a master sculptor
able to chisel the lumpy,
the obtuse,
the encumbered,
into finest form.
What we call,
eagerly,
negative emotions,
these are the tools of our own sculpting.
Strange to dismiss and condemn
the exact movements that take us,
with attention and intention,
directly from coal to diamond..
Fear
couldn’t possibly deserve the power
we give it.
Weighing into unknown,
that abyss above which we think we’d rather dangle,
held back by the collar,
befriends mystery-
a sure-footed way to be a source of light
even when entirely alone.
12 Sunday Oct 2014
Dismantling a life.
Kicking off old shoes,
the ones given-
once useful,
always ill-fitting,
finally worn through.
Taking bare to the contours,
sole to soul,
every granite nib and dusty stretch
fed by sky
and the penetrating scratch
of salt air.
Reaching beyond you,
I carry the minimum,
my skin soaking in what surrounds,
untouched by
what has passed or yet to be found.
I’ve wasted myself on an appealing lie.
These bright eyes aren’t for any other
than this splash of sunshine
and that long drink of water.
Sand, trail, roadside-
Terrain changes
in winding tales.
Think I’ll keep walking…
08 Wednesday Oct 2014
Imagining ourselves to be unlovable,
Knowing not our own expansive brilliance,
We swallow our own light
and hide in shadows of our own making.
Like a foot longing to be a fingertip,
loss.
And, at what cost? As we tumble up the first stair to the coffee joint..
How could the nose yearn
for the gifts of the ear
when perfumed steam from a cup of espresso visits
on its way to meet ether,
or when resting on the hair at the temple of our lover,
or sitting with a new book, cracking it to page one?
Had coyote visited but once before sunrise,
the turning of its rounded, black-tipped furry tail
would not have been paired
with a seated yawn-
a send-off into the riches of day.
Sometimes we like blindness
for its familiarity, yet
settling for impersonations of ourselves
robs this life of the jewel we each are birthed to be.
Let us take the hand offered,
Enjoy coyote’s satisfied yawn, and
Erupt with a giggle at each reminder to stretch
into the Sequoian grandeur
of simply being.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 