Stairway

                               Google Image

Life accommodates us
Until it shocks us down
Deep beneath our floor
Below our own secrets
It speaks from marrow
And no one can ever
Make us feel alright
About a truth that never
Ever belonged to us
The wisest humans
Are a lot like that
A river of truth

River Stone

                                                                                 Google Image
A dark rich rock rests
Alone
Near a shallow swirling sea
Bathed by constant change
Wet with polished pride
Bright beyond belief
Glistening in the sun
Near the river mouth
Sunset smooth with time
Happy in its harvest

The Earth

                                                               Google Image


Is Earth rolling through the sky?
Do distant stars to wishes lie?
Does the sun spin just for fun?
Who will time the human race?

But rain has washed the snow
And left it nowhere else to go
So it chased it down the drain
To feed the rivers and a plain

Now the world just burned again
But the earth still seeks to reign
So change colored by the crow
Flies fast between the trees
Through shadows that we breathe

This world was never perfect
Just good natured and alive
It welcomed life as it arrived
As it struggled to survive

Now we shoulder for our space
As Mother Earth sets the pace
Gentle love with awesome grace
She is authentic and forgives
While she is teaching us to live

The earth we all live on is alive itself as it can signal to those who listen with care and works continually, without seeming to tire, to sustain itself. We do, for the most part, live within the sealed envelope of our atmosphere and share the air and the food and the water that exchanges between all organisms and the planet itself. Just as light travels in all directions to reach us through space our awareness and imagination travels outward at a speed faster than light. This is only one of the many ways in which the whole universe is tied together. Beyond giving thanks for the air and the water and the food that sustains our visit here we need to somehow give thanks and acknowledge life itself that can sculpt an ever-changing presence and awareness with ease.

Winter

                                                 Google Image
It is white and it is cold and it is winter
Much of the world seems to be sleeping
Catching its breath and sleeping well
Before the busy parties of spring arrive
Before the lush growth hides summer
Then after fall’s heavy harvest is stored
The circle returns fully to winter again

I have been here long enough to believe
That spring will come again to the land
Just as it will come to me in its own way
That the lush growth in summertime
And the heavy harvest of my autumn
May be within as much as outside of me
That the vines of my love will reappear
In the light and warmth of springtime soil
Wherever winter’s dreams will take me

Seasons

                                                      Google Image

Cold and
Still Raining
The days are dark
And light comes late
With night starting early
Now my life seems short
Many things have changed
Since I crossed the threshold
Of aging within an older body
Awakening a longing within me
A longing that may just follow me
Across all the invisible borders
Of life and death and age
It could change me
My attitudes
My joy

Winter Window

                      John Eastwood - Stillness and the Winter Sky

Moisture hangs from its grey winter sky
Brown leaves rot relieved on the ground
Sleeping still under winter’s moist blanket
Dreaming up another grand adventure
While ten thousand perfect pearls light
And hang motionless on thin branches
of Japanese Maples and Weeping Birches
Droplets that seem to hold the only light
How do these water droplets gather light?
Crystal drops that feed on flocks of mist
Vibrating weightless in winter’s stillness

Such crisp silence in Winter’s Window
So different from the soft blankets
Of deadening snow – that seem to grow
Flake by flake through winter storms
Covering the world in a deep silence
Making it lean toward white and clean
But Winter’s Window is very different
It is clean but wet and magnifies sound
Until the nameless voice in our thoughts
Or even our own soft whisper sounds loud
Its silence is real – not stolen from the world

For the very first time this year
And in the very last month of it too
True silence has visited and left me
Alone enough to join everything

Destiny

                                                                                            Google Image

Destiny is beautiful and forever
It so often seems to live just beyond
The push of our own retreating horizon
Across the sea of our own blindness
As we hold to our hope like a shining sun
In a daytime sky that is forever bright

When enough days have passed
To know the sun will rise again
And warm an early morning sky
It helps us know the difference
Between Hope of mind and body
And the true Destiny of our soul

We will never reach our destiny
Until we accept that it lives here now
Born out of a past that we walked upon
A past that brought us to where we stand

Destiny is as beautiful as a flower
That awakens from its desert seed
Or the stars that rise from darkness to pulse
Before retreating back to their empty sky
Filled more full than ever before

Our Destiny is Here in this present moment. This precious present moment that we brought ourselves to through all the footsteps of our past. Where we go from here is up to us as we carry our destiny with us – alive and real in every moment. Let my destiny be my song, my painting, my love.

Wholeheartedness

                                                              Google Image


Wholeheartedness is a forest of many trees
A place where we can be both lost and found
Happy lost in light and unafraid in the dark
Breathing bright air washed in perfect pride
There are others in this room full of love
That is full of rich gifts from the other side
We’re blessed to know we belong here at last
Wholeheartedness has ended our exhaustion
Exactly the way the wise man said it would
Our soul carried us beyond where our body tripped

Snow Geese at Night

                                                                       Google Image from Audubon 

I can hear them
But I can’t see them
Snow geese that fly at night
They seem infinite in their numbers
Every night the past month I heard them call
This time when they are elsewhere
I will remember selfless calls
Their perfect V’s
Unseen to those who fly

I will remember
The perfection of their V
Silhouetted above the street lights
Generated by the air that we can not see
Explained by the geese that can only feel
When they are in the right place
Singing with the ecstasy
Of remembering
Their home

           Let
                 Me
                     Live
                           The
                     Way
               They
           Fly

Winter Sea

                                                                                   Google Image

The sea sways full with emotion
As waves topple from tall to speak
Rumbling cold thunders of protest
As they run up the cobble beach
And then draw back into the sea
Where salty water needs to be
For one more chance to speak or see
I wonder what the waves all say
Before their torn by wind into spray
Soft lines of whitecaps from far away
Are fearsome and urgent in salty spray
I wonder if waves just speak for wind
Before it dances with forest trees
And flushes birds like autumn leaves

Snow Geese

                                                                  Google Image

Thousands of snow geese
Renewed by birthing their young
Salt and pepper into winter
Their white and black wings
Excitedly wedging a way
Toward the new place they
Always carried with them
Or did they simply hear
And then trust a voice
That frees them to fly
Into unconditional love
  Into nature's golden promise
Breathless survival for some
Yet simple, pure, joy for others

Belief

                                                                                   Google image
Winter’s chill seems inevitable
It has waited outside my door
Where it has always been visible
White snow high on distant mountains
I always saw it there but never felt it
Until it descended like a river into my valley
And separated me so far from the sun
Let my soul be generous to this powerful visitor
The one who knew me before my journey began
This ancestor of life, whom I honor

Nature's Change

                                                                                     Google image
I am shaken well today
Hungry, for a change
I ate – twice breakfast
The first was so good
The dog is fed as usual
I watched two videos
And helped my computer
To wake through darkness
Man shifted his timepiece
Yesterday
So we start the week in light
Today
The real world found me
Right away this morning
Walking along the river
Autumn leaves sleeping
Over ragged green grass
Changing the ground
Near blue sky now filled
With bare black whips
When did all the yellow
Maple leaves come and
Where did all the green
Cottonwood leaves go
The world seems different
Its daylight is different
A seal swims in the river
The salmon must be here
I am so lucky just to be
Able to notice it happen
As my coffee cools and
An eagle labors upstream
Over-top of swimming seals
And under leaving geese
A jet plane lands unaware
Noisy in the middle of it all
Until the sweet harmony of
Nature's changing song returns

Our DoG

Where is the wet nose
The one that finds me
And makes me think
That dog was waiting
Just for my specialness

Where is that bright dog
That became my friend
And accepted my love
So I wanted to give more
And I didn’t need it back

How can I tell my children
That our friend who shared
So many secret journeys
With them just laid down
And let go his warm body

And how without hands
Or words to open dreams
He taught us about trust
And helped us all to love
Simply, openly and freely

Winter Moisture

                                                                                                Google Image
Winter moisture is always there
To buffer any change that comes
As it locks the doors on darkness
And closes the windows on light
It changes the sound of tires
It changes the brightness of sun
It hides forever the comfort of day
Winter is tied tight to short days
As it sleeps with an angled sun
Its privacy is a gift that is given
Through the goodness of loving hearts
And the smiles of confident courage
As raindrops form before falling
The privacy of clouds generously draped
To cover one million naked bodies
All of them see-through except for
One single solitary speck of dust
Imprisoned but floating in crystal purity
Free in a single water droplet
That waits for our story to unfold
For a destination to reveal itself
Giving freedom to all who hear it
And freedom to all who need it

Wake

                                                                     Google Images
Waves from all the working boats
Are forgotten after finding shore
Leaving no trace behind
I watch them silently
As they approach
Seldom arriving
Along the noisy shore
Before their vessel fades
Around a bend in the river
Leaving no trace of either behind
And their moment passes for ever

Difficult

                                                                     Google Image
A season from elsewhere
Caught me by surprise
As it paused in front of eyes
And greeted me from darkness
Just a nod without surprise

With no malice in its heart
It bumped me from the start
Then perched me on life’s shelf
To listen for my self
Just like I would do
If I were there to choose
Winter’s cold and wet
Or summer hot and dry

But this season is different
Leaves don’t grow or fall
Through this winter met by all
And if I were just a tree
This season would seem to me
One solitary winter
After harvesting a life

It’s just the way I knew
And like the way I drew
But now I am deciding
Where to go from here
Prickly autumn harvest and
Life’s beauty help me steer

Frost

                                                                                        Google Image
Frost's cold fur found my window
The car starts but frost remains
There is nothing to do but wait
The engine will warm and melt the frost
What can I do except sit on a cold seat?
Remembering the freeze of last winter
And then the heat of last summer
And then the heavy rain of last fall
Here I am in the cold, again
Waiting for my engine to warm
And melt these feathers of frost
Isn't the world full of wonder?

Joy

The human mind and soul
Experiencing hollow longing
Echoed through dark halls past
Long ago emptied of people
Warm friends and bright breath
Long departed and long forgotten
As if a chapter were completed
And left to sleep under settling dust

That place was important to us all
That moment knew our joy of living
Lost in our selves yet closer to god
Giving and sharing and blessing
All in the same fullness of a moment
All in the same darkness of knowing
Lit by love and warmed by our hearts
In a time and place important to us all

Whales

                                                                                Google Image
The whales swam hungry
And the dolphins swam fast
Everything seemed confused
Even the tide was surprised
Till the natural world spoke

Right and wrong were seeded
Into land that had hardened
Old friends became enemies
When life shouldered death
Yet none could complain
Death always shadowed life
We only imagined control
And let the world humor us

We lost our will to move ahead
By the force of our own body
We stood watching confused
As if precious time was stolen
By the ground we walked upon
And by the air we breathed, the
Water we drank - the food we ate
Every moment here was important

Everything is fair
When you know the rules
And follow the sun
And love the land
Everything is fair

Autumn

                                                                         Google Image
Today sits firm in the belly of fall
As the weather wanders into winter
Stars sway behind night's dark drape
Late mornings rouse sleepy or lost
Behind their wet veil of grey clouds
Clouds have lined up past all horizons
Dragging full with water but uncertain
Where to place their precious self
Day or night on ocean or mountain?

Clouds are generous in their giving
The close of our warm dry summer
Was inevitable, as it always has been
Choose jackets, hats, socks or boots
To frame a warm and grateful body
As you walk through your seasons

Beautiful Past

                                                                 Google Images
It hurts every time
It never flies away
It can never forgive
It has never been
Thoughtful
Generous
Kind
Even present
It has never been
Here
Or there
Or anywhere
I am human because
I am human
And there is no other reason
For this insanity
Just the mind I brought with me
All for a good purpose

Poison

                                                               Google Image (Nat Geographic)
How do you let the poison out?
When the snake swallows you whole
And there are no fang marks to suck

When the venom is all around you
All you can do is to is turn into light
To caress the love that is yours to hold
And let go of misfortune for love
As if you are climbing a mountain
As if you are flying from a nest
As if you are breathing life itself
Into the Buddha’s broken body

Forget your own unconscious butterfly
This may give you the air you need
To flutter your wings and fly away

On Becoming

                                                                                                           Google Images
I read a poem touching me
Urging me to think and feel
  The future holds tomorrow
None of us will be the same
Body/mind may not remain
The past a solid body stain
We never died from the
‘…exhaustion of becoming’
We died from ‘satisfaction’
Of liking what we became
Of getting what we wanted
Living every day the same
Exhausted staving change
Ending life by ended change
Now let your body / mind go
Embrace life’s changing tide
Enjoy the mysterious way
The puzzle assembles to say
Miracles of awareness
Are flames of life itself
Thry flicker with change

Anxiety

                                                      Google Image
Anxiety is a prickly vine
Growing into the negative
Stirring the fears we hid
Deep in the blue shadows
Of a life we left behind
Anxiety can re-ignite
In these dark places

We all tried to outrun it
A basement bogey-man
That lived by the furnace
Or in the closet of a room
Or under our bed as a child
Inside the neighbors shrubs

They never ever ate or slept
Or appeared in front of eyes
But they lived and breathed
In the darkness of a room
In the blackness of hearing
Around us in dark shadows
Lit dimly by our imagination
Waiting for us to be alone
Waiting to be fed our soul
Even in our dreams we flew

Bring light to dark places
You can find courage there
Where once the empty shell
Of our fear was filled by mind
Confront it in peace and find
The light of a simple truth
Can heal the oldest wounds
Forever

Words

                                                                                                                                  Google Image
Words change softly over time
And years become gentle waves
That rearrange gravel beaches
With every tide in every season
Again and again without any reason
It was in summer’s ocean of life
That we grabbed for a hold on self
To feel warm sun and cold rain
To know our body’s hunger
And learn which way to turn
To gratify our longing soul
When the last storm approached
We sought hard to let go again
Regaining wisdom from our pain

Mouse

                                                                      Google Image
The mouse realized
And then accepted
That it was a mouse
Loosing itself to the cat
Dazed and wounded
The mouse taught the cat
That indeed, it was a cat
Even though that cat
Loved the mouse so much
And had liked it forever
  But it still doubted itself
Until it killed the mouse
And lost a friend forever

Rocks

                                                              Google Image
The rocks in the path
All struggle through dirt
  Shedding fall leaves from
Their shoulders and backs
Breaking up dirt and earth
Smoothed by striding souls
Wearing boots or carrying bowls
Scuffing stone and flattening grass
Held in dirt’s ancient grasp

Warm in the sun
And bright in the rain
Emerging through seasons
Under mushrooms, near trains
Tracing the stars past clouds
And through trees
Loving their places
Beside the fish under bees

Stars

                                                                                     Google Image
Stars in the silent sky
Tall over fragrant trees
Dark with bright sparks
Dancing so perfectly
Circling so slowly
Drifting down
All knowing
Greet my silence
From so far away
Sharing their longing
Quenching our thirst
Through beauty
And silence

Filled

                                                                          Google image
We are not important
And when we can see that
We are God itself – no less
And no more either
Fully here and fully there
In everything and everywhere
Needing nothing going nowhere
Outside of time and outside of self
Inside of life, vibrating light
Here for everything to see
Here for anything to be
Unafraid of death
Unafraid of life
Here and Now
Finds me

The Sea

                                                                                     NOAA Photograph
The sea doesn’t know
Any language or material
That sunbathes on its back
Across the wide salt sea
The ocean hasn’t got a clue
But if it floats - junk can ride
Flotsam and jetsam too
The ocean never judges
While its waves splash truth
From distant lands and other people
All struggling to float
Just as we do too

Feeling

                                                                                           Google Image
Hurting from hunger
Hurting from shame
Hurting from taxes
Wincing in pain

Laughing with thunder
Laughing with names
Laughing with taxmen
Riding on trains

Angry at noises
Angry at loss
Angry at girlfriends
Sitting on moss

Frightened by rice wine
Frightened by beds
Frightened by salmon
Spawned out and dead

Joyful as children
Joyful as one
Joyful in friendship
Warm in the sun

All of our time here
Grows full like a tree
No one can know that
Until they are free

Evening

                                                                             Google Image
If you notice me
I will hold your life
And treat you well
And give you peace
To dream through
This darkness
And will wake you with
A kiss from the earth
When we both rise
To a new morning

Money

                                                                     Google Image
It isn’t all there is
But it is enough
To make a difference
Some of the time
In the way we feel
Toward ourselves
And all the others
That we walk with
Through private places
That never really ask us
What is most important
And what we need to follow
To keep from getting lost

Now

                                                                                         Google Image
Sitting here
Inviting
A poem
To visit
This page
That offers
Ten thousand
 Possibilities
  Each one
Is unique
Each moment 
Is colored
By the past
Each moment
Is present
In the now
Each moment
Is expecting
To move the future
One way or another
‘Now’ is always twinkling
Its bright string of lights
  Extending endlessly
Through the miracle
Of this special place

Garden Growing

                                                                                       Google Image
The garden is growing
Without regard at all
Rising full and sweet
Flowers clothed in color
Conferences and timelines
All set by sun and clouds
As life’s season awakens
With no time for me now
Only for insects that visit
It is time for me to sit
And enjoy the bright music
Of the flowers growing

Promised

                                                                                           Google Image
Among the things I promised
Under words and walking sticks
Were garden hoses, chesterfields
Beds and sheets and stuff
I sent a cotton comforter
And thoughts to bless your soul
All things real and true and kind
But in truth I longed for more

As love sank under view
The memories I knew
The good there was in you
And some that left me blue
All faded in the sun

Some things I never knew
Like how I loved to laugh
Were seeded in the grass
Instead I felt my heart break
As I itched to scratch the rash

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye again
There is nothing left to say
I never chose to find these things
Or end with you this way

Dogs

                                                                                          Google Image
I don’t know that much about dogs
But they often seem like their owners
Happily living in the boxes they’re given
Food, exercise and freedom all prescribed
By others – masters or handlers who read
Details from paperwork in front of them
Reading is not for dogs
Dog's find joy rutting deeply into ritual
The sameness that soothes their minds
A dog's love, is full with no conditions
While our loneliness seldom softens
Dog's love is full with easy forgiveness
A gift we hope to learn from them
So alive in all the dogs that see us
And invite us into their lives
In exchange for gentle touching
In places far from fear and stress

Sometimes dogs wag masters
Making them precious children
Soft words and pats on heads
Prizes we never understand
Are cherished forever by pets
Even if we are dispassionate
Dogs always stand our friend
Unlike some others we know

Moon behind Cloud

                                                                                                                                                     Google Image

If I were a tree, birds would visit my branches

Walking through sunlight streamers today with my dog nearby
I looked up at the sky and sat down on a bench beside the big river
An unaimed gaze owned time and penetrated the air with ease above the trees
My eyes took me as far as they could go - far beyond the summer song of hidden birds
Nothing flew way up high across the sky to steal the freedom of my eye
My gaze wandered until it was swallowed by the infinite miracle of blue sky
It was a blue beyond blue that balloon wrapped the summer's daytime world
In front of that blue - not obscuring the view was a faint-frayed-pulled-apart cloud
Its ancient fabric of moisture changed like a wrinkled shirt in the sky-blue-breeze
Then I noticed the moon hiding but still clearly in view through a cloud’s moist breath
Shaved thin and white and pale the moon watched silent and unnoticed from its blue pond
I was taken away in that moment as my outward vision somehow gifted an inward knowing
As the sky and the moon and the clouds sang through me to summer birds in trees

Hot

                                                                  Google photograph
Tuesday is hot
Yesterday was
And tomorrow
Is expected to be
But hot is outside
While life is inside
A thickened shell
It seems to me

Friends are all
Outside of me
Even though
I long to feel
In my bones
In my blood
Our being is
Meant to be

One everyone
One everything
Knowing me
By life in others
Knowing others
By life in me
All emptiness
Now set free

A World

                                                                                  Google Image
A world loves to be noticed
It might live to notice itself
In a way that is hard to explain
I don't blame it for loving itself
We seek ways to notice ourselves
The world’s love lives in knowing
All living things that walk upon it
And great things far beyond view

But human dreams are everywhere
And they pass through so quickly
Sprite white clouds across blue sky
Fading from weightless memory
As their infinite shapes change
And fantasy plays with thought
Beneath each warmed breath
And inside our darkest worry
Or beyond any beliefs we hold
To feel worthy in this place

Circles

                                                                                     Google Image
Weeks and seasons circle
With or without our breath
Wishing for our turn on top
Wanting to understand it all
Waiting with the only truth
 Its the one we always knew
The one we want to place
Beyond our broken circles
In plain view for all to see
In plain view for us to be

Salmon

                                                                            Google Image
Silver salmon
Hides red blood
Never seeing itself
The way that we can
But always knowing
The only way home
Is truth in its heart
That shares with us
Life’s need for itself

Wild Flowers

                                                                     Haymeadows by Jill Colquhoun
 In a field full of flowers
Buttercups and clover
Anticipating glances they
Line paths we walk over

Warm yellow buttercups
And purple sweet clover
Are spread through the field
Hoping bees will come over

Flowers grow in meadows of hay
Bees’ pollen pouches are full today
Flowers of lupine, digitalis and phlox
All giving prizes to bees as I watch
Learning life needs us all such a lot

Magic

                                                                            Google Image

Magicians captivate
Like real magic can
It may happen to us
Truth is a difference
Magicians can fool
Distracting with skill
But life shows truth
Slower than illusions
A truth is never seen
Before its moment
It rings with clarity
For ever upon ever
Knowing one truth
We never expected

The Garden

                                                                    Google Image

The pleasant scent
And bold colors
Of beautiful flowers
In the garden I tend
Are gifts from the land

After sweat and love
That I gift to myself
While returning soil
To the promise of itself
I sit calm and alert
Seeing, smelling and feeling
The beauty that I touched
Now reaching out for me


Flowers 1

Flowers love the sky
Their colors greet my eye
As gravity whispers to ants
And bees that visit plants
Promising flowers forever
Unless a seed is severed

Rain onto Cedar

                                                        Google Image
Sitting in this chair
Aware of the world
Looking outside
A clear window
Here warm and dry
Beside the others
All in chairs waiting
For a doctor’s voice
To start the healing

 Meanwhile an old
Cedar tree outside
Gathers cold rain
Healing for ages
Silently familiar
In our world
But its power
Is tragically lost
To places beyond
The smell of cedar
The wetness of rain
The coolness of air
The beauty of breath
All lost to us now
Outside your gift