Have you stood?

21 Tuesday Mar 2023

Posted by in motionless, poems, poetry

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Have you stood

in the center of the street, a crooked five-way intersection,

cars all around,

stop sign only there and there, cars streaming past,

irregular and from blindspots, there and there.

No rest, they just keep coming,

exhaust and tires, drivers, cargo, barking dogs,

more and more.

The sensible thing would be to get out of the street,

the smart choice, the why didn’t you, why wouldn’t you,

don’t just stand there! crowd hissing on.

What isn’t understood,

except in your own panicked heart and frozen feet,

what they will likely never descend to–

far too scary to submit to–

is the bodily acceptance that no sideline, no sidewalk, no aid at all

offers safety

any more than right at the center of oncoming traffic..

not the left, not the right, pick your side of the dial,

that clock position, nothing feels any safer

than where you are

right now

in the middle of oncoming traffic

and somehow,

somehow

that has to be

okay.

And somehow,

somehow

you will be

okay.

Partnership

17 Friday Mar 2023

Posted by in change, companion, Expanse, flight, ghosts, Immortal, Infinite, poetry

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The horrible truth, felt,

finally spoken,

worse than death. Many times worse.

Sky fills with vultures, high,

dozens spiraling dozens, circles and circling.

Perhaps nothing so beautiful,

nothing before.

Large, black, some golden with angling sun,

every one of them alive with death,

their carrion feast,

every one of them, all, in flight,

wings extended and eyes bright, alive

in partnership

with Death.

Alive and flying, together, loosely

through sky,

floating and effortless,

in partnership

with Death and Wind.

Effortless.

Flying, floating, free.

And effortless.

Yesterday

15 Wednesday Mar 2023

Posted by in movement, nature, poems, poetry, welcoming

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Yesterday,

I walked the streets through heavy snow,

wet lumps falling

slowly.

From across a large pasture,

a footstool of a goat, wide as long and

well-furred in big bodied apricot eruption,

ran straight to the sparse metal fence in greeting.

I stopped, realized he really was trotting over for me

and broke into laughter.

Excited to make his acquaintance, I squatted down.

He arrived, turned his butt to the fence,

tore large mouthfuls of long grass, chewed in exaggeration

and ignored me completely.

Laughing so hard I nearly fell over, I stayed.

He never did introduce himself.

The whole morning long

11 Saturday Mar 2023

Posted by in poems, poetry, stillness

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People walk the oceanside

with leash in one hand, coffee mug in the other.

Small waves lick the shore, clouds,

in a brief break between storms,

milk water to sky–

horizon barely a line.

Fog clings to the crowns of pines, the shoulders of hills,

mist rising,

sand grits beneath occasional footsteps.

Salt and wetness heavy the air.

Dawn seems to extend the whole morning long.

Strange trip

10 Friday Mar 2023

Posted by in adventure, poems, poetry

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I drink in a teal grey ocean,

lap after lap of frothing wave, cormorants bobbing.

Rain falls, unstopping,

tree-ripping wind having settled.

Thousands remain without power, businesses are closed,

emergency vehicles and power technicians stand in the roads.

I love my car. She’s keeping me warm, safe, mobile.

Such a strange trip.

How I will face that mountain pass is beyond me.

Adventures are like that.

Middle place

09 Thursday Mar 2023

Posted by in poems, poetry, traveling

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I’ve entered a middle place.

Nothing similar, all askew, between there and there–

Here.

From bone-sucking desert dryness

to an active atmospheric river in the West:

A massive dumping of snow approaches

and may freeze me in a fractured state.

And it’s good.

Being taken apart to be remade is soul medicine–

ever becoming means

relinquishing the familiar.

Seems this journey demands long nights’ jarring of a wagon ride,

heavy, unavoidable air of fuel burning,

relentless winds whipping rain in my face.

After an evening arrival,

a grumpiness of wants corroded my vision.

Once heat reached many sore muscles,

I could see the riches surrounding me.

And a first deep sleep in weeks

seeped into thirsty veins

with voices of owl

and a community of frogs singing

a long and generous lullaby.

Magpie arrived with a twig

03 Friday Mar 2023

Posted by in approaching, movement, poems, poetry, rebirth

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Magpie arrived with a twig in her beak this morning,

pausing on a bare branch of one tree

before taking it to last year’s nest in the spruce.

I guess that nest will be renewed.

And the plumpest ladybug, full of spots,

waddled up a window facing the mountain.

How lucky spring is to have these visitors, and early.

How lucky am I.

Time to take my sun-starved skin outside

and face the quiet with this internal buzz.

The gathering busyness of the season seems already

to have taken hold.

Changing the seer

02 Thursday Mar 2023

Posted by in becoming, change, Deliverance, movement, mystery, poems, poetry, unlearning, wind

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Changing the seer,

the ground beneath and

circulation within,

in asking for this, I surrender,

for candle-flicker

moments.

Yet the moments expand

as a stranglehold of my brain loosens.

Yesterday,

bald eagle sailed–

she really does sail–

through currents of air unseen

while held aloft close to unmoving.

I’ve much to unlearn, hands of habit

to release,

both mine and not.

Ever more is asked of us to become

what we are intended to become.

Watching the slow wave wings

of white bodied, brown feathered eagle,

a glimpse of what magic surrounds us,

the Spirit of which we are made,

up-lifts me too,

reminding me of the spring that never runs dry.

Perhaps

28 Tuesday Feb 2023

Posted by in change, learning, loving, pain, poems, poetry, rage, work

≈ 1 Comment

How do we tender the fire,

walk the line,

embody a waking spectrum of both

the violence within–that murderous rage–

and the sacred Spirit we carry?

How do we live between

the harm we are capable of and

the goodness of our natural being?

Until each of us faces that living death,

cashes in the chips of our denial,

we humans will continue to destroy one another,

our earthen home,

and ourselves.

Let’s rise to the task.

We have, perhaps, no better work to do.

This valley

18 Saturday Feb 2023

Posted by in becoming, break out, discomfort, fertile, poems, poetry, ride

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This valley

has a strange hold on me.

Through flourishing, violent uprisings,

bloody defeats,

this ancient soil fruits a people belonging,

unmoving, and struggling

cavernously.

I’ve been transplanted, migratorily bound,

the next move both imminent and unimaginable.

Time is ridiculous–

when that change comes

and twists me from these mountains’ grip,

it could be Thursday,

or next millennia.

A loosening grip

and a thunderous push to be here,

beautifully unexamined,

saddles beneath me.

I must ride.

Discomfort undertows us to

get

over

ourselves.