The rest

06 Sunday May 2018

Posted by in abundance, becoming, devotion, family, honoring, movement, mystery, night, poems, poetry, prayer, presence, receiving, release, welcoming, wonder, work

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An initiation ritual,

in the dusk-scape of dream,

of shared finery, costume, camaraderie,

and non-blood family

emerging from here, over there,

here, here, there

unexpectedly,

for the me before me,

with a gathering of eager others,

to mark time with life.

Saying no, no but I am not she

not anymore

no–

But as beads pass over head, and colors add up,

layers of feather, bone, cloth

none mine

each display on this body

currently

a light in mind shifts-

not for me

but she

who may pass through, closing

beginning years, finally,

in step with those knowing when it is meant to happen.

Dressed, prepared, without doubts,

I walk the procession.

To celebrate.

To say goodbye.

To welcome all the rest.

Something has to be old

02 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in aging, becoming, community, poems, poetry

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Something has to be old,

not this eternal new, no scuffed corners or

stories to tell.

Without scratches and scars of history

what are we

but endless remakings missing the one ingredient

making us us.

That old floor, concrete, painted red

once

holds, simply, the scent and memory of red

the countless footfalls and dropped coffees

words, silent songs, and resting weight

of decades of loved use.

Old meets time

where novelty hasn’t the guts

to leave its natural mark.

That kind of alone

20 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by in change, family, movement, poems, poetry, work

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Nothing to hold onto,

the castle crumbling,

narrow a ledge, heavy the stone, cracking

walls and the mind hunts

for where to land

and it leaps to worry, no,

Fear projected onward, forever, helplessly.

Alone, like this, a sore eating away flesh-

and not real.

Grasping does haunt,

bite in and seep out, a rising fever.

But

it is a snarling shadow dog.

Sit,

solid, alive, and watch the demolition-

you’ve brought about the Fall,

soak up its awesome, fleeting

magnificence.

Waiting

17 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by in listen, nature, poems, poetry

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A hurt grows

of missing meaning

and nothing but letting it

will answer the call

until I know what she’s asking.

Waiting

in longing

discomfort

may last

through spring,

a windy season punctuated by screaming gulls,

rotating buzz saws of this coastal spit.

Clearing the pasture

17 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by in aging, change, community, home, movement, poems, poetry, the road

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I’m surrounded by endings here.

And I came back,

came back

to where what can grow

I don’t know.

The ties, bindings, wrappings and scenarios

they’re old,

done, hardened and strange.

Perhaps the ghosts need herding,

finally clearing the pasture for

what belongs beneath this patch of sky

of salt, and pine, cypress and stone.

Too much concrete dulls the senses-

Sun aches to touch earth,

it may be my time to help her do so.

Passing by at any hour

15 Sunday Apr 2018

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

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Beauty is

bird suspended, waves breaking one

in to another,

hills woven of shoulders, hips, toes,

clouds sliding across blue..

It is not the

must possess, perfect, expensive, mechanical conquest

mine,

but

connection, relationship, tangle of bouncing language, laughter song around the twilighted corner, and

being followed softly home.

How did we confuse it with a thing to buy,

an object to have,

a keeping to be kept by?

She tells her own story,

never upon command, and

if meaning vanishes the crease between our brow,

planting our feet more firmly on this earth,

we are in her Presence, an arrival of moments

passing by at any hour.

Sitting in the ashes

18 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by in becoming, change, courage, learning, movement, poems, poetry, Sight, strength, work

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And what are those skills

sitting,

unkempt, ignored, without mastery,

in the ashes

much as you’d like to abandon them there?

Only your gifts, the spells and support

needed, castable with no other’s voice or hands,

the workings for which you were born to suffer

and give.

Step, rich and slow, into your place.

A gyre of vultures, forty strong,

turns ’round at the base of the mountain

pushing remembrance of how small

you’ve been playing it, and

how large you now must be.

Grief so light

17 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in beauty, becoming, Body, break out, change, Deliverance, Fire, learning, movement, poems, poetry, Run

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Grabbing at her skirts with reaching manly hands

uninvited

toward a desired body-

not hers (the particular) but any-

that flipped the switch, dramatically,

from her naive Oh I’m Wanted

to the real He Thinks He Can Take Whatever He Wants,

and she wheels around, out of his greedy, cruel grip

leaps out the window onto a roofline she knows like a cat

and stops doubting her worth, while learning

to doubt his,

and smiles with bare feet hugging the tile crest

of a building she’s perfectly willing to leave, bearing

a trail of grief so light it brings only

a rush of relief.

Born hungry

16 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in abundance, adventure, becoming, break out, Creating, discomfort, fearlessness, freedom, learning, movement, poems, poetry, Sight

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A princess in the tower,

at a distance looking down,

wishing

and kept.

How to get out? How to get away?

Desperate for rescue, a puddle of tears

and fury.

Why me? This terror and despair.

But, one sunrise, a light switches,

the kaleidoscope shifts,

her untapped power surges

along with the sight that she is on the inside.

An inside most would never know.

Following the sun

with fingertips searching slowly

the walls that keep her,

Somewhere, like the chink in the dragon’s scales,

a crack in stone

will bring the first ray of wisdom,

and freedom for which she was born

hungry.

The whole warm night through

07 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in dreams, listen, nature, night, poems, poetry, prayer

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A frog in the front garden,

between snow storms,

has much to say:

First, forget the plans-

they were a ruse anyway.

Second, recall sunrise

and the songbirds’ melodious chittering.

Third, fourth, fifth,

forget the numbers,

holding on is holding back.

And then he busts into chorus

the whole warm night through

and a memory of what’s to come

sands a path deep into sleep,

wishing a good slumber

to one and to all~