Go forth

Did you ever fall in love for the first time?

If not, I can tell you-

you’ll be changed.

The wind will be his kiss when he’s not

by your side,

colors will reach out with incredible loving hands,

the sweetness of a peach will impassion

every last one of your taste buds,

and music will have been composed, amazingly,

just for you..

Yes,

yes, that and more.

But that’s not what will change you-

not quite.

What will, however, rearrange your particles

after both the elation and inevitable suffering rip through,

what will wrap you up, enrapture your heart,

sing you to sleep, and bring you to greet each rising sun

with gratitude,

is a knowledge taught by your own body

that another’s adoration is not only not necessary

but that it was you who had to fall in love with you

all along.

But I don’t mean to ruin the game-

go forth

and fall.

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.

This little one

Longing comes with the light,

and sometimes leaves with it.

That’s how it goes when

nobody’s looking.

But a quivering dog needs a soft gaze

to make it real.

Gentle,

gentle with your eyes

and any movement-

this pup can’t take a stare

or a jumping out of your seat to say hello.

Fill a small dish by the door and,

when its brown eyes and cracked nose part

the hillside grasses, sit visibly

but out of the way.

This little one is hungry.

More than that, though,

loving.

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.

Someones of Somethingdom

Those pesky brains,

the ones making a someone of a something-

who’s been serving them the kool-aid?

Settle them down before we cart them off

wearing special white outfits complete with ties

they can not undo.

We’ve categorized, cauterized, organized, familiarized 

until the ize of the horizon is known.

Imagining may be cute when your feet are small

but now we must grow up-

taller, smarter, firmer in stance and action;

Up-standing people further things, uphold things-

We are the Someones of Somethingdom.

Reality has a timeline, afterall.

And, then, while we adhere and cohere 

we’ll do something silly like have a child

who will see all we won’t

and giggle until she’s sideways

leaving at least one of us to wonder

just what exactly brings that spark to her eyes

and rolling thunder to her tiny, mirthful belly…

(Go ahead, It says- research that.)

The new year

The new year could be a prism,

a prison,

an ache and an embrace.

We just never know,

until at once a soft wind settles and we do.

Offer a kindly nod to the dark,

and an opening of arms to the light-

both will accompany us the whole way;

it is our work to acknowledge and learn from 

the full spectrum every day.

May we remember to create Beauty 

and move skillfully as we can

with the cinnamon dance of Mystery..

And, please, mind the tenderness of little toes.

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.

New growth

After wildfire,

in the enclosing wood

where bend of bough, like tuck of wound, 

cradles loss in darkness- 

please, 

time.

Time to pause, to sense,

for paws and scents to know

of safety’s approach.

For repair,

beneath dust-breath layer after dust-breath layer 

of grey white ash, does come:

New growth.

Pain, when given its due,

becomes not enemy

but ally and

its own necessary offering. 

 

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.