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.
06 Friday Nov 2015
following the first rains,
earth perfumes the head
as damp and bay laurel and redwood rise skyward.
ferns unpin their curls at the feet of oaks.
kite and crow skirmish loudly
high above the crown of yellowing sycamore.
the river’s voice returns-
live music is never the same twice.
02 Monday Nov 2015
Yellow finches are preparing for rain.
While quick sky changes cast shifting light,
the fountain hypnotizes with song.
A ceramic mug of black tea rests on a knee,
and imagined scenes play out in my head.
With the wind tossing strands of hair,
I realize,
staying for the first drops to hit
may be the baptism I’ve been waiting for.
02 Monday Nov 2015
His voice finds me
before I seek the phone,
its sound
a net into which I could drop.
In the roughness of his hands-
iron and wood and earth.
In his touch-
light, eagerness and suggestion.
Miles suspend moments of definition.
I’ll listen and let contact fall
onto white paper.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 