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