Dream Whale

I pick my way beneath an oily wooden dock,

pilings down in sea water,

feet invisible in the dark, searching,

feeling the old belief in danger;

I raise and lower my feet in gravelly sand,

edging between sharp barnacle covered posts

then out on a rotted step

where I hear a great blowing

and in the wide cove a whale,

silver and magnificent

arches its massive fluke

calling me out to open sea.

 

 


What’s At Risk

In the dusky blue of early evening

Venus emerges like a lantern in the west

then Jupiter following loyally

like a light bearing knight;

three fat seals lay above the tide line,

one snorting and belching in his sleep,

dreaming of deep water and fish;

a pair of otters swim beneath them

floating in the flood, waiting for dinner

as Sirius fires in the east,

then Orion’s great scabbard

with Betelgeuse then Aldebaran pointing

toward the twinkling sisters of Pleiades;

the seal disturbs a flock of resting geese

who honk off to the nearby bay

as Mars, Ursa Major, Polaris and more

fill the sky with unfathomable patterns;

when daylight completely vanishes

thousands of stars shine

through the dark form of towering firs

crossed by the shadows of bat and owl,

speaking the secret life of Earth

that was and is and without vanity shall be

within the vast envelope of heaven.

 

 


Singing Us Home

I harvest words within the earth

made of owl wing, moon change,

fallen trees and stubborn grass,

old rocks lending their stories,

wet spray of the winter sea,

speaking in voices more eloquent

than my translation, bowing

before her spreading garment

hoping to sing us all home

in the remaining light.

 

 


Feeling of Being Alive

Ideas give way to feeling

feeling to the essential –

the forever mystery of a moon lit tide,

the rise and fall of life in trees,

Jupiter’s pass through winter’s sky,

endless beauty and the sharp edge

where we dwell, angels yet not;

as sun streams across the ocean

everything lifts in thanks,

the oldest ceremony the simplest

for God is the feeling of being alive,

awakening the openness to this knowing.

 

 


Elder Face

My head aches,

the bones in my hand throb,

their stories of punishment

coming out in skeletal code;

an icy fog covers the valley

and as I struggle to rise

from the dream depth into now

the face of an elder

looks back across the room,

etched with years of solitude,

unflinching, no expectation,

pain a part of each wrinkle,

a deeper joy burning from within,

startling me with the awareness

of who I am becoming.

 

"Grandmother Moon" by Dirk, Blackfoot, Friends of Red Lodge, Dream Time Series