26 Thursday Nov 2015
Sometimes, walls within walls-
a corner in a lit closet-
become the needed arms pulling you in
when being of the world steals too much of you.
The buffer zone softens,
muffles distant voices still too close,
settling scattered and jabbing elements.
This is you
learning how
to be your own port in every storm.
A day will arrive
carrying the gift of that small place
purely as memory.
22 Sunday Nov 2015
Doubt
brings options:
to shrink or
to reach.
Retract into the likes of a hermit crab
and the inside of a shell becomes much
of the known world.
Extend into open space
and the lion that could be out to get you
may now be the elicitation
to explore
an ever-widening landscape
where you track the wild unknown.
20 Friday Nov 2015
Come
as
you
are.
You may not know
what
to do with you.
Give rest-
Spirit does.
20 Friday Nov 2015
I monkey with words,
try on hats, new songs, clashing cloth,
break the rules, knowingly and not.
Sometimes, roller skates and wings work
with a red feather boa-
unless it’s too long
when snagging it under a wheel
becomes potentially lethal.
Swinging from trees, throwing vowels like bananas,
and whooping it up in the jungle
means
I’m not likely to be invited in for caviar.
No problem,
I’m having too good of a time out here
singing beneath the stars.
19 Thursday Nov 2015
Shame is a dark and sticky thing.
A hole we never see.
A bottomless, unnameable void.
It snatches us in the unlit alleys of our minds.
Ghastly,
what it thinks it can make us do-
shrink ourselves to the smallest brittleness
of an undesirable,
worthless,
lifeless
outcast
who cannot get anything right.
Immense power we give to one with no hands,
no face,
not even a nose.
And, how lucky we are
to have the nerve
to turn and look,
to sniff,
to get to know
the lurking bogeymen, the paralyzing Medusas,
behind the fence
and around the bend.
Come, come-
Let us ask them to tea
to learn what it is
they really want.
16 Monday Nov 2015
I reach softly into the black pocket,
wrestle with butterflies-
these are prayers
and this is Mary Poppins’ bag.
What arises hasn’t feet
or end
or concrete idea to control comfort.
This is roll of tongue,
whisker of remembrance,
waft of cinnamon from grandma’s kitchen long ago.
Your divinities are found here,
as are everyone’s.
We enter alone,
exit the same,
but billions of hands reach
to hold us in between if
we choose
to let them.
16 Monday Nov 2015
Bathed by cricketsong
in dying light,
tiny apples burst round on the limb.
Fall swoops
like twilight bats
and trails of smoky ritual.
Guided by questions,
a door opens,
letting the irrational and mysterious
walk through.
I offered you rage.
You returned it as fertility.
Thank you.
15 Sunday Nov 2015
With blood running
in all our veins,
couldn’t we wonder instead
what we have in common?
We look to the skin, to the beliefs,
to what keeps us apart,
yet
hearts still entrain,
breathing seeks outer rhythms,
laughter lights eyes like the moon above..
Birth, death,
we share the same doorways
for a brief span here
together
on Earth.
What might peace look like
if we search
for what connects us
in the web of creation?
Our time is short,
the effects of war long.
Could we meet on a dark street
unafraid
and mutually glad for the passing
of a stranger?
15 Sunday Nov 2015
In the dream,
the medicine.
In the illness,
the cure.
With your mortality came your wisdom.
I lay myself down
alone on cold stone
to invite invisible guests
and their message.
In honor of the living temple-
both mine
and yours-
help me trust
in the staff and serpent.
13 Friday Nov 2015
few share this frequency,
but when the coin hits water,
when the hand beats drum,
when the eye reflects ray-
when image strikes surface of heart,
motion begins,
sound travels,
and we gather anew.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 