Leaves

Fall leaves don't die...
They just change colour
Before they are another
Just as life might wish

They work so hard
To help their tree
Until it sets them free
To play with all the others
In a sea of autumn colour

Plastered to the ground
By the rain that's pelting down
And soaking everything around
Leaves rest near their tree
The ones that set them free

I may see them all again
If our journey never ends
It may pick us up and then
Cast us all back as friends

Fall Day

Today belongs to fall
Its leaves changing and all
As an aimless breeze wanders
I can glimpse sleeping branches
Through coloured cloaks that cling
To broadleaf summer trees
In the forest by my home

The weeping Birch
Over my ragged garden
Trembles in the Breeze
Yellows and greens flash
As its leaves rattle and spin
At the end of threadlike stems
Leaves strain to leave their tree
It doesn't need them anymore

Such beauty in life's struggle

A raven calls from across the field
Before flying straight overhead
I call to it through the miracle
Of its strong swooshing flight
It answers simply to my heart
Fluttering on the top of a Cedar

A black and blue Stellar Jay
Steals summer's silence
From the autumn day
Calling loudly
From an unseen perch
Behind coloured leaves
Beyond the frosty path

Not knowing I was there

Today

Today was one of those days
We all ate corn and potatoes
Today was one of those days
It rained cold all day long
Today was one of those days
I used headlights from dawn
Today was one of those days
That will always be ours

October's Wind

Cloaked under folds of cloud
A cleansing wind gusting loud
Is ripping fists of leaves away
As autumn branches swinging sway
Without a thought, without a care
Coloured leaves fly here and there

The River

The river flows
Waiting for her children
To return
The Smell of fish
In the wet forest
Is her richness
The wealth
Of life's passion

The Crow

The crow stops me in my work
As she flies beside the moon
Now beating in my chest
Her sound belongs
The moon belongs
As spider silk streams
Silver in September wind
Near tall cedar trees
Tied to heaven's door
With freedom

Autumn Dance

Spiders, mushrooms, fall leaves and fish
All practising courage inside the landscape
Arriving with the season's new confidence
Appearing bold before a Winter's white death
Now, it seems too late for anything to rise
And stand upright in this vulnerable world
They bravely waited till everything else hid
Till the warmth of last summer's party ended
When the flying insects withdrew from the air
And the flowers withered back into their soil
Until the sun warms the soil and calls their name
Next spring after winters' wetness has wearied
And the sun holds the land in its hand again

Seasons

I wonder if insects and flowers
That use their life in a year
Notice the subtle difference
Between a season and a life stage
For us who live a longer time
We know that seasons are cycles
But something that just happens once
Might only be a change

Watching

Watching it all happen
Wondering why it is
Chasing with a mind
Turning a mind away
Accepting the gift
Knowing it is real
Feeling whole again

Excitement

September treads without judgement on the end of summer's ribbon
Its days speak warmly of summer as spiders weeve to cool the night
September's dark hangs longer and its nights weigh blurry with mist
The month will promise excitement when cool nights change the air

The fall wind is blowing chattering all the dry leaves
Some fall free fluttering and tumble to the colored ground
Leaves and geese high overhead both know the world will change
Autumn stirs with this rustle of dry leaves as the grass-fed-geese fly south
Lit homes are warmed beyond the crackle of evening fireplaces
September countryside brings its excitment every autumn
With richer and fuller colours than the city ever knew

Miracle

Yesterday I saw a miracle
I find some every day
They are so easy to spot

They can land or perch in trees
Or sing across invisible distances
Or float weightless across the sky

Now everything I learned so well
At schools before the closing bell
Is lost with words that I can't spell

While everything that I can see
Smiles openly in greeting me
Sitting here beneath the tree

Living

  Wanting to live every day
When we become older
Sings a blessing to life
But to live every day
When we become older
We must die every night
  Accepting the past as still
While a future waits for us
  Shimmering in the darkness
So as we close our eyes
And forgive the past
  As we are reborn
Here inside a miracle
Our work will waits for us
Gifts to give and love to share
Before we move on through

Prayer

Sweet darkness
Settles on my wilderness
Water with waves lays before me
And I know that I must go somewhere
Yellow lights are shining from the houses
In far away bays sending their light toward me
Each inviting me to follow their far away promise
Some of them are probably not waiting for me
So I must choose which light I will follow
To guide me through sweet darkness
So I will not fear becoming lost
Somewhere in the night sea
That waits for me

Truth

It is hard to get it right
Don’t get me wrong
We know when it is right
It’s just hard to make it happen
The rope is always taught
When it is tied to the truth
It falls loose if tied by a lie
The difficulty may be our mind
If it learned some things wrong
Like the wrong words to a song
The intention may be there
But the result will be in err
Be guided by love not reason
Our mind may be off a season

Intuition

I never know the future
I can only see the past
Things can move so fast

This present place I stand
Sticks still upon the floor
Between my past and that
Future waits behind the door

But I like to stand on Now
Even when I fly on planes
Intuition, weightless, precious
Never needs a boarding pass
Yet it sees so far beyond me
That I trust it - I don’t ask

Soft Summer Rain

Finding freedom from a cloud
Launching into the stiff breeze
Flying blindly into the future
Not knowing but always hoping
That everything will be alright
And I will find a stream in life

Water

My boat floats upon it
Its sounds are so sweet
Like a night time lullaby
It sways me in its cradle
Separate from its world
Living blind in its belly
Separate from my world
Racing around on the land
I can feel life's own voice
In the quiet of this place
Subtle and yet truthful
And happy to be in me
Whatever that might be

Gentle

Gentle is a beautiful thought
Like a smile on a child’s face
Real and full of warm wonder
Soft beauty that welcomes us
A wave that doesn’t break on shore
A wave that blends into the sky
With no land or boats in sight
So hands that smite can heal
And mouths that chew can kiss
This breeze, warm and gentle
Holds the power to be here
As long as we live within it

June

June summer days so long and warm
Invite bare feet to feel their charm

May

 The flowers of May wash clouds away

Things

The things we bought
And things we brought
The things that stand through time
Are objects that all catch our eye
And things we won't give back
So we move them here
And we move them there
We take them everywhere
All that stuff
That coloured fluff
Can ache our muscled back
When things we own
Make us strain and groan
Simplify to get back on track

Spring Evening

Sit by the river near my office tonight
The tide is low and the world is calm
Still everything is moving and changing
The water is calm the sand looks smooth
Sun shines bright across a silent world
The rich golden light bounces blindly
Around a hungry Heron stalking her prey
There is no shadow just her reflection
And it stands between me and the bird
No matter where I go or what the bird does
The reflection is perfect without a blemish
And the heron stalks without stirring a ripple
Until a male Heron flies high over her head
Crossing the river and drawing her attention
I felt her wings lift her feet from the water
She followed her life leaving fish to swim

Birdsong

A birdsong warms the sun
It lightens food for flight
And pleases a place in me
Like the flat red fingers
Of reawakened maple leaves
Playing in the noon-day sun
Green and dark red on top
Softening the light’s glow
Pleasing yellow bees below
As they fly from their hive
Seeking nectar in flowers
The undigested distraction
In eternity's muscled crop
Birdsong sings to my heart

Tree Frogs

Folded into the silence of my country home
It is always very easy to find comfort there
The night air is misty clean and man is silent
Cloud covered land at night lets in no light
Departing sun leaves a mossy rich darkness
That offers a new dimension for our hearing
Sounds change each moment of every season

Warming the evening blackness by my house
I listened to three tree frogs calling last night
Loud and distinct in the springtime darkness
Voices calling in front of a million other songs
All composed near the pond down the road
A distant din of frogs like a mountain range
Formed a nonstop horizon of sound at night
The perfect background for the three voices
I could hear calling in my yard near my chair
Where I sat in a sound that stayed beautiful

April

...'From April showers spring May flowers'...

Perfection

Never-ending the task
Of seeking perfection
Inside each crumpled start
That waits in the waste
Crushed by living hands
Enslaved by cultured minds
Seeking to find perfection
Filling the bin with beauty
Over and over again
Hidden in paper balls
Tossed onto silent waste
Each wishing for more lines
To grace their empty space
The countless bold starts
At the top of each page
Can teach a writer
That hari-kari is real
Inside a crumpled ball
Tossed into the pile
While failure only visits
If our stories die through
Bad reading or soft writing
Or implausible situations
All needing to be understood
And begging to be forgiven
Before a story can unfold
Logically and sensibly
In its own perfect way

Spring clouds

Clarity above a shifting cloud of thought
Where sun is bright and its ray’s are warm
All of heaven seems clear from way up here
My human friends are lost below that grey cloud
I wonder if I am confused without my feelings
They guided me toward my one real star of truth
Feelings I breathed in and felt burning inside me
Feelings that shook me and woke me with wonder
Strong feelings that I was afraid of and in love with
Big chisels that chipped away large pieces of shell
A false shell that I couldn’t see, that surrounded me
Kindness and time were more subtle tools of change
And they found me just like they found you, and you
Waiting to be struck down by the fear that seems real
Death is certain and natural. It is the biggest chisel
Rooted deep at the most distant point in our landscape
Waiting in our future but born long before our past
Death seems to grow bigger as we approach closer
And as it feeds on the ground that we stand on
And breathes out its clouds to tilt our heavens
Yet we go through big changes and small changes
All the changes that we never saw waiting for us
And all the changes that could have ignored us
But would never allow us to pass by - untouched
Like dry sand sleeps under sunshine. We imagine
Change as natural for others but not for us

We are so lucky in those moments when the clouds part
And the heavens are revealed to our soul’s breathing body
We are lucky in those moments when we know everything
Even though we find no real power in the information
It is simply the truth without an appetite for anything
It is simply the way that it is and it can be no other way

Spring Wind

The world is windy again
Why is it that I notice the wind?
When I seldom notice the still air
The air is always surrounding me
Sometimes it is moving
And sometimes it lays still
It has always been fresh enough
To honour my sweet breath
And each bird I watch fly
While I sense us all living
Inside the same breeze

Your Dog

Loyal as a shadow
And scary as the night
A bright white smile
And two eyes bright
Black dog is a friend
Wagging tail not there
Running to the water's edge
And jumping in the air

How did Bear convince you
To throw a rock through air
So he could bark and dig it out
And drag it back to land
Splashing it from certain death
Out on the shallow fan

Hidden under turbid water
Overlying the sand
The rock stayed out of sight
And hidden from us all
Sitting on that log
Like a floating tennis ball

Chester

Not easy, not pleasant
These tasks that rest at hand
Letting a dog go peacefully
Helping children understand

Death is just as real as life
Like ripples in the land
They change with every tide that flows
Sculpting lines across the sand
They change with every season
As they reach out for the moon
And change in every nighttime
That a star fits in a spoon

I am alive and will survive
Life and love and loss
I hope to meet another friend
Just like the one I lost

Cycles

Cycles, like circles
Can chase their own tail
Snakes without ladders
And bread without ale

Waiting for springtime
We’re tired of the snow
And searching to find
New flowers to grow

In our gardens of soil
Our sweat and our toil
Each color’s divine
In moments that rhyme

The flowers will grow
Whether here or not
But old planted rows
Loves compost that rots

Each color is bright
When a plant matures
If the soil stays black
Then the cycle recurs

Transitions

Transitions are a time of change
Not time to change the world
Instead a time to change ourselves
Inside this changing world
A change can be quite gentle
But sometimes quite abrupt

We all mature so gradually
We hardly see the change
Somewhat like a glacier flows
As it strains toward low terrain
We’re often blind to see that place
Yet know our path leads there

But change can take us rapidly
If life gives us a ride
Yes,change can take us quickly
As fast as we blink our eye
Like Dragonflies that live below
And change to suddenly fly
Their life begins below the boat
And ends up in the sky

Walking

Smooth or labored with pain
It moves us from here to there
On a Mission or a just a Whim
We move with measured purpose
To meet with certain satisfaction
Just by being there and not here
And accomplishing whatever it is
That we meant to do in going there
All of this so that we can return
To the place that we made our plans
Whether they are the same or changed
Larger or smaller than they seemed
When we first conceived them

Embrace

Everything lives in an embrace
The ocean embraces the shore
The shore embraces the ocean
Humans walk along the land
Embracing gravity with their feet
Embracing the far away world
With two tender eyes that see
A heart that beats has everything
Understanding all it needs to know
I cannot look at anything without
Sensing an embrace of tender welcome

Thread

Life is a strong thread
That runs through
Every living thing
Waking or sleeping
It shadows across our brow
Knowing something
We will never understand
Even though we spend
Much of our life trying

Rocks

Rocks are hard
And they can last a long time
Patience and resolve
Maybe that is what they practice
As we admire them
And we name them
To keep their power for ourselves
And in that moment
We must state clearly and simply
Time is irrelevant

Beautiful Moment

At the end of every day
There is a magic moment
That runs across the sky
Blacking out man’s land
Beauty before stars arrive
Holding onto its true value
Given freely to those who wait
To watch each sky unfold
Into orange or pink or red
So different from the night
So different from the day
Living in between them
Reminding each of us
That life can be exciting
Its beauty often sandwiched
Between long stretches
Of busy then empty living

Smooth Stone

Noticing a small smooth Stone
I pick it up and inspect it
Then put it safely with others
Deep into my own pants pocket
Clean and smooth I feel them
Warming under my finger tips
As I walk along this path I love
This trail that follows the river
And wakes my heart with feeling
Whenever I forget myself along it
Sometimes, it offers me a stone
But only if I am ready to see it
As if the stone was never there
Before the day that I found it
Yet, as if it has waited forever
For me to notice its Smooth form
Then I stop and bend to pick it up
And carry it to a new home for now
Ancient, smooth, clean and bright
It smiles with warmth as we walk
Along the timeless river that flows
Smoothing every stone that it touches
With its gentle abrasion of wisdom
An endless truth changing forever

Movement

Movement is a miracle
In a life that is sublime
It takes us to the healer
Or to buy organic limes

Movement is a miracle
Trees can’t understand
Wind blows into autumn
Moving leaves across the land

Wintertime for plants
Is a time for sleep or rest
Birds that fly seem restless
Just before they leave their nest

When I think of movement
I see all my furry friends
The warmer that their coats are
The less they need to spend

Movement is a miracle
That runs from here to there
The only thing that differs
Is the speed at which we scare

Barred Owl

Perched on a branch
Near the edge of the forest
Close to my open door
In the blackness of the night
Owl practices its hollow call
Ruling the world of darkness
With such confident mastery
My snoring brought the bird
Now its eerie call wakes me
And sends me into silence
Wishing to know the night
Wanting to watch the owl call
Before the sun takes the night

The Present

So many days have passed since I was a child
When I looked in a mirror to search for my future
Would I be bald or grey? Would I be strong or weak?
It really doesn’t matter to me at all any more
For the future has day by day become the present
And here I am now - just the way I am
But this moment will pass away with time
And with that passing I will stand upon new territory
And shoulder everything I value in that moment

The things that I value are fewer and fewer with time
The things I now value rest among friends and family

If

If I were a tree; birds would visit me
If I were the sea; fish would swim through me
If I were a tea; thirsty people would drink me
If I were a bee I would buzz for honey not money
If I were a mountain I could make rain fountains
Neither a tree, nor the sea, nor some tea, or a bee
Could ever pay the fee to live in place of me

Water

Water is perfect
That is all that it is
Blue in a clear sky
Grey in a cloud
Clear in a glass
And white if it is cold

We need it to live
We need it to swim
We need it to drink
Or to ski on a whim

Winter Moment

This day could be overlooked
It could be shouldered aside
Without even thinking about it
If you weren’t moving around
Watching for spring’s surprise
But the day held its own beauty
In clouds and moisture and sun
All playing across small fields

I drove an hour through change
From clear vantages to dense fog
The world’s vignettes shook me
I felt so open and then so closed
From high up I could see forever
White cotton batting ropes of cloud
Like braided snakes across near islands
Joined white crusts of thick fog
All bellied onto dark foghorn seas

The wet and silver-squinting road
Descended darkly into a belly of cloud
Changing gradually into a dull ribbon
As cloud smudged the floating sun quiet
Hiding half of its light in the mist
Cloud moisture clung to the cool road
Waiting to embrace a warmer season
Then the road led into the light again

The road ran again from blinding silver
To wet-rubber-black when it descended
Toward the still and heavy salt ocean
Across the beach of clean wet stones
Crackled by endless fingers of waves
Each bright stone inspected and placed
Just where it needs to be right now

Thank you to the sea and the sun
For their endless joy in change
As clouds cloak me from the sun
Inside their miracles of moisture
Breaking open the moment's beauty

Changing

The world is said to be changing
Of course everything is changing
Life arrives new in every moment
The past dies as the present arrives
And future's basket is full of our hopes
Sometimes we withdraw a good dream
Sometimes we take what is left there
It doesn’t matter because what comes
Is always new to us inviting us to dance
Inside the music of our only universe
And a life we share with all other life
In that heated moment when we are alive
In that moment when all directions are real
And our breath is as important to the land
As the wind that pulls the colored leaves
From autumn trees and then recycles them
Returning them to a place that imagined them
All growing usefully on bare branches

Miracle

The rain seems the same
As yesterday and before
But every drop is different
Did you notice the drops?

Rain can only exist
Because it happens
If it never happened
It never imagined itself

What is real is often lost
Inside a precious miracle
That forgets everything
Before we even arrive

Science and familiarity
Can dissolve the wonders
That greet our children
When we all first arrive

And after every miracle
Is named and explained
Our dreams fade into Art
In the light of ‘Artificial’

Try hard to remember:
That dreams brought us here
So embrace every miracle
With your own warm heart
Let science soothe your mind

Wonder

The rain is the same again
As it was yesterday and before that
But the drops are different
Did you notice the drops are different?
Rain can only exist
Because it happens on this earth
If it never happened
We would likely never imagine it
Just like so many other little things
Here in this precious miracle
Where we don't remember anything
Before we learn science
And use it to dissolve the wonder
That greets children
When we all first arrive
Before we fear the miracles
We name them and explain them
And our dreams become Art
In the false light of ‘Artificial’
Yet our dreams brought us here
So embrace miracles with your heart
Let science soothe your mind

Depression

Once and maybe again
An empty lonely train
Lies us down the same
Defeated by the rain

Prisoner of our mind
No easy way to find
If truth speaks in rhyme
Differently each time

Silence writes its name
To hide us from the pain
And find invisible gain
No safety lies in fame

Anger's shimmering fear
Takes us far from here
To see its silver mirror
Don’t let that visitor steer

Now that time has passed
The world still longs to ask
Do you know your lonely task?
We can answer to the mask