27 Monday Mar 2017
Having never felt this old,
nor so young and inept
– and simultaneously –
well,
there’s a fence-crashing, a home-burning,
a finding-one’s-own-nose-on-someone-else kind of mess.
What is to be done with a tension like that?
Bear it.
Stretch with it.
Let be torn loose the decayed, the ineffectual,
follow the twisting into the twist,
watch new movements be born.
I guess.
Still, if I’m a living version of a mr. potato head,
could I waddle in those shoes a ways?
It might do me some good.
10 Friday Mar 2017
If suffering is the path laid down for us, by us
stone by stone,
How might we love
not only each one but
the trying burden of laying them
on the surface of this Earth
(could as easily be the moon. still, it’s not)
for our own feet to walk upon?
If meaning is found
simply
in carrying our suffering
in devotion
– not as martyr, but pilgrim
with full unknowing of why,
or even how-
to the making of a life,
by virtue of its having been given,
then
might we lean into the expectations
life holds for us
and do right by them
by our own true Selves-
that Essence buried
beneath all the heaviness requiring our backs, hearts, hands
which knows what it is
to burn brightly
for no reason
what
so
ever?
.
.
* with thanks to Viktor Frankl
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.
15 Wednesday Feb 2017
Movement
like rolling earth
after tectonic plates shudder-
It’s tough keeping your feet without
loosening up,
first,
and
laughing,
second.
Because when else can you ride
for free
anywhere you are,
with the benefit of losing
what you swore kept you alive but
only
brought you
down?
Go ahead,
remember the sound
of your own giggling insides and
jiggle a little~
11 Saturday Feb 2017
I think I’ll choose a valentine this year.
Maybe,
my valentine will be
the perfection of bells ringing
from the strand strung across the handlebars
of that bike slowly riding through town.
Or the wet bark of vanilla-butterscotch scented pine,
the one dropping sap spring into fall
for the bottoms of my feet to collect.
Or the lovely world view offered up by that children’s librarian.
Or the reflection of the silent patron
who sips coffee and dives into book and notebook-
shadow and light of paper, letters, pencil.
Or the hands of that man,
rough in all the right ways.
Probably, though, it’ll be the spark in your eyes
when the magic of this finite existence
brings a smile from rivers so deep
you never stood a chance to resist.
Hmm,
It might be worth checking your mailbox real soon…
02 Thursday Feb 2017
Somebody’s got their hands in the cookie jar
to take every last one.
And ain’t nobody having it.
Because it goes like this~
One for you, and for you, and for you and you and you.
Anybody missed?
Oh yes, please join us,
your stories are encouraged.
Here, warm your toes
by this joyous, abundant fire.
31 Tuesday Jan 2017
Eyes heavy from reading news,
a seemingly apocalyptic caravan of events
and, yet, spirited fires light here, there, and there-
in me, in you, over the next hill where soft glow flickers.
Hours on the phone, speaking up, speaking out, thanking,
and yet another heart lifts during great challenge.
Tend to that fire consistently,
have water always near to temper and moisten,
eat of earthen foods to slow, slow
into the long journey ahead.
All are precious in this global transformation,
take another’s hand in yours in pure reminder.
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 Friday Jan 2017
A silence is being called.
Not
a silence of submission, or
apathy,
shame or forgetfulness– but
an emboldened silence,
one for hearing voices drifting
through cracks
and memory.
Listen.
Dear God, Listen-
a new way demands a creativity
well outside the bounds of what has come before.
This silence is gentle, receptive,
immensely strong.
Recall, from the depths,
how it is yours, ours, and
not.
Bones speak, be certain
they are included.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 