23 Wednesday Oct 2024
Posted in change, community, continuance, poems, poetry
≈ Comments Off on Looking across the way
Looking across the way,
a sleepy two-lane mountain main street,
to the gas station-gone-corporate-pharmacy,
high clouds pinking in sunrise glow down
on four peaks, none yet dusted with snow.
One of the girls working behind the coffee shop counter
speaks of monks and warlocks,
mysterious doorways, to the other.
I glimpse over at the red traffic light,
a rainbow dashes straight into the sky.
Town wakes from swishing maple to diesel 4×4 truck.
30 Monday Sep 2024
Ever make a choice that lands you
smack
in foul waters?
The best made plans…
God continues laughing.
Somewhere down the dusky road
dotted lines passing softly in the rearview
will paint an unexpected picture,
shaking disparate puzzle pieces into place,
the pieces having been siblings from creation.
Keep looking ahead,
the unfurling story behind you,
rugged with color, disturbing in greys,
fuels what is to come.
And there’s no expecting
what that may be . . .
07 Saturday Sep 2024
Feels like sitting on a hip
at the edge of a pond,
circling a couple of fingertips in warm
greening water,
waiting. . waiting. .
waiting for the world to slow down.
But it won’t.
And you know it’s not going to.
Those singular fingers dipping
in the pool, though,
connect you to something sane, a rhythm
echoing through this swirling cosmos
of which you are part,
of which you are made.
While these days and nights
and days and days and nights and nights
are nothing short of the inside of a blender,
find where you and the water meet.
Somewhere within the movement, touch
and endless noise,
a stillness–
pull from that.
28 Wednesday Aug 2024
Egg rolls and IPA,
Agatha Christie, pop R&B and kids parading
in and out.
A strange and satisfying blend.
From a walk to the library to pick up,
among other things,
a copy of Winnie-the-Pooh
(multiple readings required) after news harsh enough
to melt one’s ears or harden one’s heart,
and stress enough to keep a person in bed,
I tip back my head to breathe in towering trees
and warm evening light.
It’s a funny world,
a funny, funny world we all share.
Awkwardly, magically,
and with plenty of bedevilment.
Keep laughter ever ready
in your blessed little back pocket.
It’ll never short-change you.
12 Monday Aug 2024
Driving along
and a sudden elevator drop in my chest.
Riding that familiar riversong of sadness a moment,
I understand–ah–
my old, precious friend
is holding a conversation I’ve heard countless times.
Now I can recognize her disguise.
Funny mask, dear one,
but a confusion belies those heavy, tearful eyes.
Stress, strain, the much too muchness of things
brings you here.
Rest, love.
Hide in your cubby hole and come out
whenever you would like to sniff
the riotous wind again.
05 Monday Aug 2024
Posted in generations, movement, poems, poetry, walking
≈ Comments Off on Suspenders, belt and cane
He walks through, slow, steady,
racing stripes down the arms of his cotton shirt,
stick angled ahead of him and taking his weight,
his grandson leading in front.
Not every day suspenders and belt combine–
gotta love the full barrel belly and ambling body
rich with story.
Onward, onward to the next adventure..
From the unseen low-turned speakers,
music swirls in his wake.
10 Wednesday Jul 2024
The tumult is our own.
It happens out there but in here the real storms play out.
We take action, response comes, repeat.
Sometimes a looooong stretch of waiting shows
what changeable beasts we are;
How to set down outcome
and reside in the lively space between this and that…
Sturdy land goes liquid, tables collapse, chair tips over,
the cat catapults herself to the top of now crooked refrigerator.
Yes, the happenings.
But, oh, the tumult.
Work with the shiftless, restless, beautiful
beast.
The rest takes care of itself.
29 Saturday Jun 2024
I’ve been contemplating heaven and hell,
while chewing an apple slice,
staring at where
the sweet dry hills meet sky.
I think it’s kind of like that.
They come together, an uneven between,
the elements can be explored, felt, seen,
drawn, smelled, poked:
they’re in sacred relationship.
And we have to learn, each within ourselves,
our relationship to them.
Both teach. Both burn us to essence,
if we let them.
We can enter one and take the other
right along with.
Wherever you stand, sustenance can be found.
Where’s your heaven to your hell?
Are you the same within each?
27 Thursday Jun 2024
I have decided I may be losing my marbles.
But that’s not really the problem,
finding the hole they seem to be tumbling from is.
Were I able to locate that,
at least then, when I’m light enough to fly,
I’d know where the wind is whistling through.
27 Thursday Jun 2024
Stretched thin by uncertainty,
by loss,
now an inseparable blend:
A gossamer veil.
Another world, active as this one,
signals faintly,
in blurred sound, through garbled sight,
from the other side.
I sit on dead calm sea
in my little light boat, just me.
No waft of wind, or lapping tide..
I squirm inside knowing nothing
can be done.
Sitting here while the surrounding world
holds its breath
I look about at the shorelessness
wondering,
what could possibly be next?
For now, I sit
reminding my lungs to expand,
to release,
to expand,
to release…
other worlds can’t communicate
without a hollow
for silence.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 