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.
08 Wednesday Mar 2017
Grass,
green, high, lilting..
Spring wears her tall rubber boots
and wanders through
from seedling to start, from birdsong to unfurling fiddlehead.
Crossing slopes slowly,
around and up,
She eventually meets their tops
having tapped every waking wildflower
with a wink and a sweet how-do-you-do.
Her hair trails behind her in post-storm breeze.
With a softened gaze, you’ll catch a snippet of calico print dress
somehow waving
from a corner of your own sunny imagination.
21 Saturday Jan 2017
The women speak
and dogs lay down side by side,
cats walking railings sit in spots full of sun,
the cursed dust no longer cursed
becomes, finally, nutrient moving
from here to there.
(Trees nod slowly in recognition.)
The women speak
and silence begins again to be known-
an expansion from where
the most needed, sassy ideas rise.
The women speak,
and our planet shakes off a yoke
we think we’ve set around Her neck.
The women speak,
hummm, yes, listen.
20 Tuesday Dec 2016
Roots set in frosty, frosty ground
hugged by grit and worm and mole,
the slowlystretchinggrowing silence of
tips touching stonewetsoft.
Ears needn’t hear, nor eyes see-
vitality cups darkness
and nutrients find pathways
up up up
to light of day, and sharp starry sky.
The underearth knows quiet
and no-hurry, no-worry.
Sit awhile atop roots and wonder
just wherehowwho far
your own earth arms wriggle.
21 Friday Oct 2016
You
to whom strangeness is foreign
in the creative force of living
-from the bubbling,
biting smell of fermenting kimchi,
to the heated twisting of metal
in rough hands capable
of leaving can’t and wrong and won’t behind-
Keep following
those peripheral ribbons of inspiration.
The crumbs of the yeah-butts
couldn’t possibly do.
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.
13 Saturday Aug 2016
And if the stars are talking to you
through closed sash and latched window?
And if the tree sway would catch you in a dance
were you only to step outside at dawn?
And if the thick green pond might turn blue
if you’d catch its eye while passing by?
And if the coyote call one ridge away
could reach your naked aching ear
were technology not wedged tight,
filling the cracks where nature could get in?
And if the ducks recently born,
hiding beneath the bowering bracken
edging the water
could gather your attention as you do theirs,
would this love affair ripen
and our wild and sacred
no longer be made into amusement parks?
There is a begging for fidelity here-
make this wild love affair true.
It is our one way through.
03 Wednesday Aug 2016
How is it your lips found mine
from a thousand miles,
in that sudden night warmth that wraps a person
in some late, dark fogs
while salt foam hisses closer up the sand?
How is it, stranger,
there’s familiarity in the creases on your face,
the new color of your eyes?
Proper ones on a beach
may never know
what every particle of sand and
hidden star understands.
There’s this,
now,
nothing more-
the breaking, dying, spinning, softening, flowering..
It doesn’t get easier, or more beautiful.
Following fear
knocks agony into coves where
it never belonged.
Thank goodness for wind.
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.
03 Tuesday May 2016
Love’s no merry-go-round,
no sign up for the day and walk away thing,
no remembrance on Tuesday and a forgetting the other 6;
Love’s no yes-dear, whatever you say dear.
Love’s a wild one
whose hair, let alone heart will not
be tamed.
Because she expects the best of you, the most of you,
the oh you don’t feel like it -ha!- that’s funny of you.
Drag yourself to the ledge and peer over.
The view is not for the faint of heart.
Wishing yourself there is a waste of the work
your cells do without stop.
Come forward, rise up,
no other task is worthy of you.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 