inside

saying yes to all things
and I’m in the flow again

I know because I feel the river moving beneath my back.
the steering is done.

will you climb into this raft with me?

making eyes
righting wrongs
eating from the tree

making it all up.

don’t look at me like I’m the one–
you’ll get lost and we’ll separate.

look at me like you can’t wait to find out
what’s next

what hope does

give me even a silver wisp of hope and I’ll slay every dragon.

one look in the mirror of you
betrays all the bored lies I’ve been spouting
and offers a door
straight through to the pool.

all this time spent dreaming and I dream still
but this dream is a rope my two hands know
so I will live and die following them.

I will take your face in my hands or eyes or dream
everything you give me
will be kept and used well
flower or flower meal

all feeding this idea–
(the one I’m talking about is
just as real as any letter on this page
but lit up
and alive with its own heartdrum)

these letters and faces, eyes and fingers
are simple tools for the show
but what’s built requires none of it. 

what I want to tell you about is
there is a great eye inside my chest
I’ve coupled with so securely
you can touch my skin and watch me move.

I can see you did too

So I do remember, though they say I don’t.
I remember despite this hopeless unceasing din
and I will slay every dragon on the way to you
and I will dive in every pool you offer
to wash and quiet me
into yes,
I remember
again. 

I give and receive music as love

I give and receive music as love
because there is no second place for the kingdom of heaven
to cleanse all these flavors of longing

I give and receive music as love
because the notes write a smooth fence for my mind dog
with a bone she loves

I give and receive music as love
because the plucked string of my pain is pure fire
and cannot be put out by an imagined pool

I give and receive music as love
because it defies the urgency of consciousness–
the most earnest root cannot know the river

I give and receive music as love
because it never goes,
always resting in these teeth,
singing

the gray

I watched two old gray trunks entwine tonight
and it sent me to pieces.

like I knew something of unchaining
after long loss

like I knew something of recognizing
a thing so long gone
I had to feel
and feel
and feel to know it wasn’t some soft delusion

like I knew something of how
when everyone leaves they
take you too

but joy descends
without a breath of recognition for forgiveness
or time
and in one swift moment
a life’s restored.

all that time spent sick,
looking up at a mountain
of impossible healing
laid waste
on the altar of
now,
you’re here.

love poems, too

I’m imagining a night
right now
where I couldn’t get there fast enough
if you hollered for me

so I’ll send this down the wire
like an old telegraph
made of pulses
and listen here
on the other end
alert and quiet

for the sound of the star I recognize

don’t sleep too long

******************

benevolence is a word I cannot stop hearing
gifts that are really gifts
and as soon as I tune my drum to it
the music never quits

******************

I will hold the gaze of my Love
the way a mother would hold the gaze of her child
as her wound was being stitched
because if it is not seen
it is less there.

We laugh when young children hide their eyes
and believe they can no longer be seen
but I wonder if they know a clever truth

that all we own are our own gates
and through them we make the world

******************

you make my heart beat
or should I say something more Gestalt

no,
you make my heart beat because you’ve shined your light
and I receive
and it beats

******************

be still
belly digest
warm cat
fingers buzz
heater chug and blow
pulse go

your every detail is the realm of my heart

******************

let’s meet here
come to my place
and make music
logs burning each other brighter
restoring the superhighway that goes
past every hangup
until we’re so full
only stillness can hold our high
and the world makes itself again
at our feet

******************

this last one out loud
because I want to feel the words in my mouth
when you speak them

your willing plaything

and the buzz moves to my lips.

this is the same realm
with a new door

better yet, tear down the house.

love poem #1

somewhere in that abyss of light you call the sky
is a force beyond reckoning who
holds you dear
the way all your longing can’t even fathom

we all know this
but then we get the sky confused with God or aliens or a dream-
something other than what it is,
a picture that gives our dense body a sense of horizon
an expanse that awakens our skinlessness
and hope

and then we confuse feeling dear
with feeling uniquely special
and more than something or someone else
forgetting the freedom in love
the inherent, utter equality
and unspecific connectedness

but if you could imagine
for a moment
and paint the picture you wish
from one small thread of remembering
you would find a love so much bigger than love
and more generous than even the softest gaze
from your Beloved.

heartbeat repeat

Is anything happening in there?
have I dulled you to nothing or is a lid still tight?
thump, thump;  thump, thump
gives me no notes to make a song with.

you keep turning in the direction of the nearest sun
which right now came yesterday and left
leaving my skin burned and eyes tired
wanting empty dark

cold again, putting back pieces
I would turn about face forward
were I willing of the loss

but same-old uneasy today has nothing on you
all that love and pain
awake fresh
waving your flag
like there might still be someplace in me
left unclaimed

This Family

each of us were chosen.
we are here
for someone in this room made
a sacred choice
so strong
life defined itself again
and a light was thrown in the sky.

when I look up tonight I see
the cosmos playing connect-the-dots
my star made from yours,
made from another’s before her.

the light goes so far we don’t even
know time
or if we are seeing something alive or dead.
these lightways between us
are portal veins
beating the drum of all time and life.

there is nothing you could do
or not do
that could ever unmake us.
if anyone has ever looked up and seen you
the miracle has happened.

the infinite light pile
of every small thought
in the history of ever
conspired to become the spark,
the kindness, the recognition
that became
you
and then you too were asked
what do you wish?

you are my family.
your light is close to mine
our wishes liquid neighbors
and if you look out the window forever
or sing your light into a new star,
if you dance
or crumble
or ride your wagon in circles
I will marvel
at your sweet sips of truth.

to me, the pulse of our unspeakable bigness
lives in your laugh

because
you are my family.
near star,
our sacred intersection,
blessed proximity
makes your lights
so much brighter
from here

The Leaf and the Tree

Mama Tree and Papa Bear

As I prepare to lift off for a new experience in the tropical wonderland of Bali, I am celebrating and appreciating both my parents who decided to take the leap too.  They accepted my invite to participate in the retreat I’ll be co-leading there – Soulful Relating Through Song and Dance.  It’s truly a leap for them at every level, and their courage is inspiring.  I’m really looking forward to this time with them and with everyone in the group – reflecting on the ways we connect to our self, our soul and spirit… to others and the outside world as a whole.

Gratitude is one of the most direct routes I know of to that sweet spot of connection, and it’s the key ingredient in my annual holiday poem hunting for family members.  Honestly, the tradition has given way to a (ahem) more fluid and unpredictable timeline – the poems come when the muse stikes and I make enough space in my crazy life.  This year, one made it out on time- my splash around the big pool of Thank You to Mom.

I knew of a great tree,
standing within a great forest.
Great, not for anything but being as it was
a natural climber that sought the sun.

She was one of a million sisters, brothers there
making life among life
Raised by the sky that brought food and storm.

She grew strong, like the others—
shapely, positioned on a high slope on a clearing,
more strongly sown than some perhaps, for the exposure and angle of her roots.

She spoke in slow stretches of bark, making leaves as fruit.

She became my tree.
I would come and go, connected to her in grateful, silent ways
though my days and purpose were different, moving—

I spent hours against her trunk yet I could not tell you her true story.
I spoke another, noisier language,
seeing from behind my own reachings.

I wondered how it was for her,
if I had come to serve her, or she me,
if she saw herself reflected in my shiny, watchful face.

She saw me surely,
tended me generously, being tree as she was,
sheltered me as she knew well to do,
with no instruction but her forest and seed.

I saw her from my own eyes, alone among that forest
not knowing if she knew
that my very presence was testament to how she lived
her roots unfurled, giving thanks to her sky.

The Owl & The Kitten

“Something will always be something”, said the owl.
And the kitten thought this a strange thing to say.

For the kitten, knowing nothing of somethings,
Thought some somethings might not like to stay

Something when they could do nothing.
And she went from the owl to go play.

On Sunday the owl said “let’s do nothing”.
And the kitten said (like nothing she knew),

“But if we do nothing, nothing happens.
And nothing happens to be something to do.”

The owl hooted, “Oh yes but, clever kitten,
I’ve never done nothing, have you?”

The kitten thought of somethings and nothings,
then asked of the owl the next day

“I’ve tried to do nothing, but somethings
are the one thing that stand in my way.

Is there something to do about somethings?”
Owl said, “On that, there is nothing to say.”

The kitten found this nothing unhelpful.
“Then what, Owl, would you have me do?”

Owl cooed, “Something will always be something.”

And the kitten knew nothing, anew.