If suffering

If suffering is the path laid down for us, by us

stone by stone,

How might we love

not only each one but

the trying burden of laying them

on the surface of this Earth

(could as easily be the moon. still, it’s not)

for our own feet to walk upon?

If meaning is found

simply

in carrying our suffering

in devotion

– not as martyr, but pilgrim

with full unknowing of why,

or even how-

to the making of a life,

by virtue of its having been given,

then

might we lean into the expectations

life holds for us

and do right by them

by our own true Selves-

that Essence buried

beneath all the heaviness requiring our backs, hearts, hands

which knows what it is

to burn brightly

for no reason

what

so

ever?

.

.

* with thanks to Viktor Frankl

Spring

Grass,

green, high, lilting..

Spring wears her tall rubber boots 

and wanders through

from seedling to start, from birdsong to unfurling fiddlehead.

Crossing slopes slowly,

around and up,

She eventually meets their tops

having tapped every waking wildflower

with a wink and a sweet how-do-you-do.

Her hair trails behind her in post-storm breeze.

With a softened gaze, you’ll catch a snippet of calico print dress

somehow waving

from a corner of your own sunny imagination.

Spirited fires light

Eyes heavy from reading news,

a seemingly apocalyptic caravan of events

and, yet, spirited fires light here, there, and there-

in me, in you, over the next hill where soft glow flickers.

Hours on the phone, speaking up, speaking out, thanking,

and yet another heart lifts during great challenge.

Tend to that fire consistently,

have water always near to temper and moisten,

eat of earthen foods to slow, slow

into the long journey ahead.

All are precious in this global transformation,

take another’s hand in yours in pure reminder.

Not exactly

It wasn’t through torn paper

blackened shoelace

or scuffed wall 

that I found You.

It wasn’t the constant push

circulating fear

or I-must-do-betters..

not even the inch between 

the sidewalk and me

plus a bruised knee.

Not exactly.

Add the non-starts,

regimented dreams,

what’s-wrong-with-me’s,

attempts to fit when fitting fed starvation,

and the broken heart- birthday after birthday-

with one shattering

nearly beyond recovery

that, finally,

I found You.

The joke being

that I’ve carried You in me

since before the first sunrise.

Except now,

when I say hello

I can hear You answer.

Fill our days

What if we were as fierce
about seeing
finding
knowing beauty
as ugliness, fear, and lack?
Would we not become greater protectors
of the overlooked and precious?
Would our focus not
change
from what we want to avoid
to that asking
for further creation?
From being barefoot on rain-soaked earth
while sun breaks clouds overhead,
to cinnamon in coffee,
the perfect heat of a shower,
sustained note of a well-played cello,
to strangers reaching for each other’s hands,
and friends who have plenty to eat,
a car that starts,
the woodpecker we’d like to curse
for waking us out of sleep-only-
its tapping brought us a view of the sunrise,
and places in existence where peoples
are honored and heard.
Wouldn’t the goodness flood us
even if
nothing else could we sense but
the beating of our own heart-
wouldn’t miracles fill our days?

Its nature

Being an untamed tributary

of a river whose origin reaches far 

into depths unkown

brings twists of bramble,

leaping fish,

frog and cricket symphonies,

bats dipping low in twilight-

when settling into quiet lulls.

In rugged young churning-

escaping water

pulls earth, boulder, tree to itself

as passion builds with heavy rains,

filling banks,

carving hungry routes,

chewing civilized lands and

renewing plots left withering.

This tributary is this and more,

trading nothing away

in honor of its nature–

wild, strong and unpossessing.

If I lay down

I can’t speak to you from here.

From here where I don’t listen.

But if I stop

circling and

running and

dodging

and

reaching.. 

If I lay down armaments

and armour

both weighing, separating,

isolating

me 

from

me 

and

me from you.. If

I lay myself down

upon your buried curving roots,

this bodily circulation

will remember

a tree-based rhythm,

an earthly pulse.

Without effort

the music changes.

And if?

And if the stars are talking to you

through closed sash and latched window?

And if the tree sway would catch you in a dance

were you only to step outside at dawn?

And if the thick green pond might turn blue

if you’d catch its eye while passing by?

And if the coyote call one ridge away

could reach your naked aching ear 

were technology not wedged tight,

filling the cracks where nature could get in?

And if the ducks recently born,

hiding beneath the bowering bracken

edging the water

could gather your attention as you do theirs,

would this love affair ripen

and our wild and sacred

no longer be made into amusement parks?

There is a begging for fidelity here-

make this wild love affair true.

It is our one way through.

Plenty

Sometimes

one who entwined fingers with you through the night

departs as

quickly

as he arrived,

and kisses left on on the back of your hand

mark his passing.

Sometimes

that is

plenty.

Talking grass

The season of talking grass brings rattlesnakes,

grasshoppers blooming out each foot fall,

the head of a rabbit left by a skilled carnivore-

this, and more,

among seed heads clapping in the wind.

Moisture snuck deep underground,

like the losing end of relating.

Still,

it’s

simply

promise

of fecundity yet to come.