The beauty of five a.m.

Darkness, silence, brightness of stars,

silhouetted tree crowns,

the beauty of five a.m.

I’m not sure why we forget,

so readily forget,

the preciousness we participate in.

These troubles, 

the wasting, threatening, destroying-

maybe turning ourselves right-side-round toward

birthing light

relies upon one task:

Remembering.

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.

The women speak

The women speak

and dogs lay down side by side,

cats walking railings sit in spots full of sun,

the cursed dust no longer cursed 

becomes, finally, nutrient moving

from here to there.

(Trees nod slowly in recognition.)

The women speak

and silence begins again to be known-

an expansion from where

the most needed, sassy ideas rise.

The women speak,

and our planet shakes off a yoke

we think we’ve set around Her neck.

The women speak,

hummm, yes, listen.

Underearth

Roots set in frosty, frosty ground

hugged by grit and worm and mole,

the slowlystretchinggrowing silence of

tips touching stonewetsoft.

Ears needn’t hear, nor eyes see-

vitality cups darkness 

and nutrients find pathways

up up up

to light of day, and sharp starry sky. 

The underearth knows quiet

and no-hurry, no-worry.

Sit awhile atop roots and wonder

just wherehowwho far

your own earth arms wriggle.

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?

I am a shooter

I am a shooter.

In all the ways I hate myself, in all the ways I hate others,

in any destruction of life in which I partake,

in my cruelties and holding on to misunderstandings,

in any willful resistance to seeing difference as beautiful,

in my own brokenness, impatience, refusal to love,

I, too, am a shooter.

And how

may 

my life-

this singular life-

be a devotion toward loving and mutual living 

on this planet,

the one inhabitable wondrous place

we all share

and call home?

Born into violence and out of grace,

how may my breath move

from the one toward

the other…

With each day

I ask,

in the face of violence,

for grace.

Born thus far

An open chair awaits you.

Clearing it of a tumbling-height stack

of NOs 

took some doing.

Approximately four decades worth.

And now that the rich, carved wood and velvet

of that high-backed chair holds nothing of mine,

there’s space for you at the table.

Admittedly, food hasn’t been cooked…

Uhm tea, however,

I’m ready to commit to.

Candle, flame and flowers adorn 

ridged lengths of milled tree

where our cups may sit.

Breath hasn’t yet dropped to belly-

waiting on your arrival out here in the valley

has caught it between Yes and Oh shit.

A place here, with me,

at a royal oak table welcoming us both

is the stretch of generosity and strength

born thus far.

Your next offering

When things fall apart,

rest.

Pieces

litter the floor,

and probably your heart.

Let them.

A new equilibrium

finds itself

in the passing of light into dark

and back again.

Art gives time

another meaning.

The brokennesses-

curious remnants of another life-

are nothing.

Simply raw material

for the most exquisite

mosaic

and

your next offering

of soul.

Canvas

Being a canvas
life- God- paints upon,
wouldn’t you say it’s only right,
natural,
to celebrate
each bit
from soft eye, scar,
scratch divot curve and curl,
shorter leg and smaller foot
to brisk brilliant sneeze?
Divine art doesn’t exactly
deserve
a critic like you-
or that guy from the coffee shop-
in the end,
does it?

Stars burst into being

I am not your secret,

a thimble to tuck in a pocket.

Entire universes buck

at being diminished thus.

Fires rage, planets tremble,

stars burst into being.

If contracting a life into bite-size squares

soothes your longing,

please chop yourself to pieces instead.

Thimbles protect.

Creation expands…