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.

Today

09 Sunday Jul 2023

Posted by in community, distance, motion, poems, poetry, questions, transition

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Today is a tiny girl

in a dress half deep with velvet,

her finger twirling a curl of fine brown hair,

staring off fixedly

in the opposite direction from her big family.

Today is walking along with dragonfly

while a frog sings across the ravine

and buck, broad with his own velvet,

grazes in new season antlers

through ponderosa sweetened midday sun.

It’s a sticking point in the neck,

a filling of time,

the nectar-drip of writings so rich

two pages fill me up and stir until

I’m unable to sit still–

such beauty must be moved.

Familiar faces in the coffee shop

belong to no one I know.

Summer days of blueberries and salmon,

liquid shadows in the breeze,

heat layering in the cradle of this valley,

magnolia blossoms

and wondering, in tolerable doses,

what could possibly be next?

8

03 Monday Jul 2023

Posted by in pain, poems, poetry, receiving, slow

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Walking into the kitchen,

sleepy and 8 and nightgowned and knowing,

her mother sits at the kitchen counter

harming herself

again,

she speaks up, for the first time,

trying to stop her.

The girl is sent away

sharply,

that cut deep in her heart following her,

a small needy dog, for decades.

Until, one morning,

under broad green whispering trees,

cicadas thrumming toward full release of day,

her heart receives what grace that rejection was–

for had her plea changed the course

of her mother’s pain

she would have become indentured servant

to an identity:

I help, therefore I am.

In that grace came release from a lifetime

of doing others’ work for them,

the danger of not existing unless

she were needed.

Shadow

29 Thursday Jun 2023

Posted by in community, movement, poems, poetry, rebirth, receiving, release, return, shame, transformation, welcoming, wonder, work

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Wrestle your shadow until sweaty and limp,

stand up,

press powder to forehead and cheek,

adjust pants and what’s in them–

whichever or both or none–

but set yourself right for the outer world to see

that nothing is happening, not a thing is at stake

and amble down the road as if not fully consumed

by what you almost let slip.

Your badness, your weakness, childishness and

ugliness and incompetence.

Tattered cloth, disheveled hair

they give you away but more

the look

on your face

of shame, perhaps shrouded in pride,

with taste of bile

flooding your tongue

Ah!

What effort and energy wasted

on the inevitable.

Rather than hide and deny,

cover up and clean up,

try turning,

turning toward your shadow in greeting..

Soften instead of wrestle,

invite instead of deny,

look gently, giggle and come to know…

in the folds of great being–wonders and understandings,

unexpected magics and compassion.

Light, dark, braided.

Depth.

Beautiful.

Stand by

30 Tuesday May 2023

Posted by in generations, heart, poems, poetry, young

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The bursting, buried heart of a young one standing

beside you

and the rhythm in your chest syncopates with theirs.

Tears and understanding stir

yet none but listening

and presence

can be true offering,

if even that.

Their northstar guides them, thick and heavy

as the overgrown path may be.

Stand with them

at whatever distance.

Sentinels have always been needed.

The magnetic pull of all who’ve navigated

through murk and darkness

is timeless.

Stand by.