8

03 Monday Jul 2023

Posted by in pain, poems, poetry, receiving, slow

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Walking into the kitchen,

sleepy and 8 and nightgowned and knowing,

her mother sits at the kitchen counter

harming herself

again,

she speaks up, for the first time,

trying to stop her.

The girl is sent away

sharply,

that cut deep in her heart following her,

a small needy dog, for decades.

Until, one morning,

under broad green whispering trees,

cicadas thrumming toward full release of day,

her heart receives what grace that rejection was–

for had her plea changed the course

of her mother’s pain

she would have become indentured servant

to an identity:

I help, therefore I am.

In that grace came release from a lifetime

of doing others’ work for them,

the danger of not existing unless

she were needed.

Shadow

29 Thursday Jun 2023

Posted by in community, movement, poems, poetry, rebirth, receiving, release, return, shame, transformation, welcoming, wonder, work

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Wrestle your shadow until sweaty and limp,

stand up,

press powder to forehead and cheek,

adjust pants and what’s in them–

whichever or both or none–

but set yourself right for the outer world to see

that nothing is happening, not a thing is at stake

and amble down the road as if not fully consumed

by what you almost let slip.

Your badness, your weakness, childishness and

ugliness and incompetence.

Tattered cloth, disheveled hair

they give you away but more

the look

on your face

of shame, perhaps shrouded in pride,

with taste of bile

flooding your tongue

Ah!

What effort and energy wasted

on the inevitable.

Rather than hide and deny,

cover up and clean up,

try turning,

turning toward your shadow in greeting..

Soften instead of wrestle,

invite instead of deny,

look gently, giggle and come to know…

in the folds of great being–wonders and understandings,

unexpected magics and compassion.

Light, dark, braided.

Depth.

Beautiful.

Stand by

30 Tuesday May 2023

Posted by in generations, heart, poems, poetry, young

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The bursting, buried heart of a young one standing

beside you

and the rhythm in your chest syncopates with theirs.

Tears and understanding stir

yet none but listening

and presence

can be true offering,

if even that.

Their northstar guides them, thick and heavy

as the overgrown path may be.

Stand with them

at whatever distance.

Sentinels have always been needed.

The magnetic pull of all who’ve navigated

through murk and darkness

is timeless.

Stand by.

These are the last days

27 Saturday May 2023

Posted by in abundance, approaching, change, history, honoring, movement, poems, poetry, transition, violence

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These are the last days

of watching the valley open slowly

her soft green eyes,

of waiting for jackrabbit to come for breakfast,

of the coyote pack ushering in each full moon

with choral rhapsodies,

of tarantula pilgrims crossing the sagebrush mesa.

These are the last days of grit and clay dust flying

through any open window,

last of the sheriffs far more dangerous than the criminals,

of dried chiles and turquoise sky

against pink hills,

of churches holding centuries of prayer deep

in adobe walls,

of a boiling pot of cultural conflict

passed generation to generation to generation

onward making anyone arriving

within their own lifetime

a tourist.

Listen to the wildflowers and thunder, though,

and it becomes obvious–

they don’t care about endless strife.

They celebrate life and sing upward to our supportive sun.

These are the last days preceeding

the very first…

Listening to raindrops

23 Tuesday May 2023

Posted by in poems, poetry, spring

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Listening to sparse raindrops slowly

hit the glass.

Through the windshield

a mountain rises still touched by snow.

In the field,

no prairie dogs bark from rounded rim,

staying instead

firmly below ground.

Thunder sounds from above,

walls of the adobes drip widely,

roof edges like spilled paint cans.

One sparrow’s unafraid of the movements

and sings from a line

as lightning sparks to the west.

In her corner

18 Thursday May 2023

Posted by in anger, father, food, grief, mother, movement, pain, poems, poetry, story, water, words

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She sits in her corner, turning page

after paper page…

Held by two walls, floor and wood ceiling,

she removes herself

from still more broken connection.

Out there, nothing but loss.

In here, with pictures and stories, friends and

a giving, participatory world.

With father gone for work, back for dinner,

home only for irritation, judgment and sleep,

With mother avoiding pain through worry,

busyness and food,

anger unthinkable,

The girl is left knowing–

beyond the material,

she’s on her own.

Books act as balm

until, later, distance and exploration

return her to the early grief

of being alone

surrounded by people.

The nectar soothes her broken heart,

tear by reclaimed tear.

Enter the back field

16 Tuesday May 2023

Posted by in giving, grief, poems, poetry, receiving

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Enter the back field,

forgotten field,

the ignored place,

avoided place,

and wait.

In that expanse,

glacially, co-arising finds faces

to show you.

As knocking starts,

though there are no walls,

no door,

trust who comes…

Way out there on the dirt

created by every death ever,

soon enough including your own,

while it feeds infinite Life,

a quaking begins in your heart,

echoes of the pulsing earth upon which

you stand.

Do not run.

Throw off your shoes, find your feet,

let the soles of you do the listening.

As the countless losses

that have brought you to this moment

wash through, over and around you,

within those faces being shown,

greater understanding dawns–

eventually.

And though the grief you’ve held away,

both knowingly and not,

feels like it will do you in as, finally,

you agree to do more than encounter

this abiding friend,

how concrete and personal it all has seemed

now shimmers,

quivers,

like water,

like air,

and its permanence–never real–dissolves.

Traces remain,

beauty of fossils, of exoskeletons,

and strength to take another breath

is given,

not simply found.

Lightness accompanies darkness

in their timeless marriage

consciously

once again.

Sweep the threshold

12 Friday May 2023

Posted by in freedom, generations, ghosts, grief, home, honoring, movement, poems, poetry, ride, unlearning, welcoming

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Sweep the threshold,

unlock the door,

put the busyness away–

what comes is far

too important.

Build a fire,

quiet the house,

all your sensing is required.

Hear the hoof beats?

The full horse breaths?

Mice may scratch in the walls,

spiders rattle the roof,

you’ve nothing to do

but be home.

Movements beneath your skin,

flashes of thought,

quickening heart,

allow them.

This is a welcoming.

You don’t know who approaches

only that they must.

Freedom blooms

as we set

a place for everything.

What you carry in your blood

has voice–

Let her sing.

Twisted

30 Sunday Apr 2023

Posted by in beauty, break out, change, generations, learning, light, pain, poems, poetry

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Had I never entered this country

dark magic would have remained part

of fairy tales.

But tales are born of happenings,

not purely imagination.

What can be directed towards light can also

be twisted black.

Centuries of pain does that

to people’s souls,

leading them to avenge this blessed world.

Living amongst the workings,

talk will be talk, suspicion

suspicion,

and yet what I’ve seen

turns firm ground to putty.

You’d best not leave any hair behind.

Still, the cruelty that fuels and fires does,

in the end, destroy

those who’ve let ghosts poison them.

And the original curse

rolling through the generations lives on

until someone down the line breaks it

by gathering up their own light.