Rise

30 Saturday Dec 2023

Posted by in approaching, beauty, becoming, movement, poems, poetry

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They rise to the occasion,

the ones you called

to a come-to-Jesus–(minus the Jesus)–and,

truly,

they break bread and drink wine.

With you.

For the first time.

Mountains of stone become sand.

Standing centuries diminish to an hour:

Movement.

You initiated it and

rise, they do;

an occasion

holding both

life

and death

because, really, how damned much time

do we have?

Really.

Grapes, and the blessing,

the bleeding,

of injury and heart,

must not be

wasted.

Moments of chance,

swim up

to our lightly closed fists.

Let the bright, fluid young creatures in.

This may be the last.

And nothing like living waters

ushers in a new year.

Upwelling.

A little

18 Saturday Nov 2023

Posted by in community, listen, loving, movement, offering, poems, poetry, prayer, presence, rebirth, receiving, return, stillness, welcoming

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We save each other’s lives 

a little

every day.

Follow a pointing finger,

find the child.

Hear a cry never

bellowed,

resolve the ache.

Listen through hands,

to a quaking,

a breaking

of a heart yet again,

and turnings of ages will echo

through bone.

These are callings

answered by few.

Let the unmoved move

with slightest

kindest

deepening

touch,

reach stars buried

and waiting

for a return to dark sky.

We save each other’s lives

a little

every day.

In this is more

than enough.

Lost its own

26 Saturday Aug 2023

Posted by in distance, flight, growing, movement, poems, poetry, question, undone

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Fuchsia smurf hat

and a cashmere scarf,

feet cupped in sheepskin..

it’s August

and far from cold.

Sometimes you hold yourself

in whatever way you can.

The yellow jackets are on full attack,

two stings slowly healing.

Jay carried away a green fig,

no time to pause for sweetness.

The boundaries have become sloshy,

I’m waiting for true definition.

The wait may have lost its own edges.

I will

25 Friday Aug 2023

Posted by in dance, grace, mystery, offering, poems, poetry, prayer, presence

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I will dance the confusion,

throw hands into smoke-laden air,

wreak the blockades of form imposed.

Dance the rage,

the rejection,

the finding when seeking’s not done.

Dance the diagnoses, the assumptions,

the warped expectations.

Dance the exploding starburst of my own heart.

What they hear

is not me.

What they see serves

their interests.

The shape of me,

the rhythms, my name–

I will dance it with fingers splayed,

feet lifting

off the ground.

I will throw down my broken song,

its weight and timing and edge.

This is my dance,

the only one I will ever get–

and no other can claim it

but me.

Mimosa blossoms

16 Wednesday Aug 2023

Posted by in change, motion, movement, poems, poetry

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Mimosa blossoms are falling,

pink stars upon the ground.

A greatest turning point has arrived,

no fighting it.

But Beauty tumbles on; Steller’s jay pecks

into the plump dense seed of a hazelnut

still wrapped in its ruffly green,

his strong feet holding it against a branch.

I hear him, though now he’s standing

on the arm of a towering black oak.

A man living on the streets sings

while he walks the sidewalk along the fence.

Triple digits again today, most will be hiding

indoors

as long as air conditioning holds out.

Nothing’s the same.

That’s alright,

Same was a comfortable illusion anyway.

Really

11 Friday Aug 2023

Posted by in change, poems, poetry

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Through repeated actions taken

by others you learned

you’re expendable.

Expendable.

.

Stay there.

Hold it,

wait,

hold yourself dear.

Dear.

And open the door to that being–

swing it wide…

Hello, Expendable.

How are you this day?

And,

who are you really?

Really.

I gave up pretty

07 Monday Aug 2023

Posted by in beauty, break out, change, freedom, loving, nature, poems, poetry, strength, unlearning

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I gave up pretty for a greater feast,

potato chips and jellybeans turned in.

Wrinkles declare descents into primal deserts,

splotches and patches and spots imprints

of the boot crush of heartbreak,

greys the stories of the non-forgotten.

Pretty hasn’t much to offer

and with it comes trails of trouble,

trials of the kind modern fairy tales

simply can’t grok.

Lotus

23 Sunday Jul 2023

Posted by in poems, poetry

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I lay my head in the spanning palm of her leaf,

a tall gracious rising of greenness

from out of the pond’s living muck.

My head, without thought, becomes that of a newborn

held aloft in unexpected and vibrant tenderness.

On bended knee, bowed in thanks,

words disappear, a ribbon of silver.

In a clear and generous light

she offers her presence to anyone slow enough

to accept the invitation.

A broad rock softens

18 Tuesday Jul 2023

Posted by in poems, poetry

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Beneath my bones, a broad rock softens,

curly in green,

brown edged summer moss

shaded and alive,

alive and moving slowly across millennia.

Sitting and looking out, deer gazing back,

sitting and sensing,

sitting, staring.

Shifting light. Hugging heat.

The massive stone suddenly nudges:

Be clear,

I have been cleaved,

nearly in two.

A ravine in me deepens,

leaves filling, critters finding home

in darkness.

Up wells Spirit–

split rock, cleaved heart–

in a heart broken life grows,

surfaces crack, creation revealing itself

in breakage.

A community of beings inhabits

what was once a terroir of the unbroken.

Insight flashes, quickening my blood

along with the ants.

I’m swarmed.

What rose from below erupted in them too.

Go, sit still

in the fertility of brokenness.