Say the Goodbye
Wind drives up from the south against the ebbing tide, the surface chalked with waves. I look out from the cabin until the hour comes to leave for the dock. Time for another goodbye, constant as the rain and about as welcome. Shaped by the moon I seem to empty again and again and wonder […]
Scraped Bare
Hollow as a reed, empty of the hoard, wealth of silence, rock of faith. Live this life with thirst, scraped bare for the rising.
Stars Beneath the Earth
We should brighten up, move forward, give up what’s dead and past except what’s dead isn’t past, their stories like buried stars within the darkened earth. When we dig that ground up come vampires, saints, martyrs and their killers as we unravel their knots, sort their tangled skeins into smooth threads to weave our coats […]
More than Temperature
Across the channel wind driven waves push against flood tide under dark cloud and threat of rain. Snow covers the highlands holding back the summer, kin to the ice within hardened and unmoving. I feel you across the water, gray wave, darkened depth and the cold a wall between us refusing to be breached. More […]
Summer Solstice 2017
Center of the Wheel Strength of cloud, brilliant dawn, weight of planets held like a leaf. Rising with light, returning to dark and the center of the wheel only turning. *** Bathed in a Miracle The green rush is on the land bursting to breathe the warm air of freedom. We bathe in a miracle […]
Well of Beginnings
Healing the heart takes heart medicine; sound or touch, yes, but what closes the wound and brings peace rests within. There are horrors in this life breaking more than bones, isolation that blights the soul yet there is a well, cold and full that feeds us with beginnings, timeless beyond death. Rest here in the […]
Bardo Time
It’s been three days now as you pilot to the other side. You took off like a rocket but the soul slows down to the speed of life without a body. You’ve got a lot to ponder but plenty of time. You didn’t want to say goodbye but we all must, confused, distraught, with tears […]
Circle of Initiation
Ancients rise through morning light with open sky on the green land. They bring stories and songs, for the ceremony of remembrance. The new world waits across the river of grief in a circle of initiation where forgiveness flowers. Fire falls, future brightens, the sunlit beauty of what will be emerges from the mist, the […]
Red Blush
Circling around like fish in a pond thoughts wander through people and events until returning to silence; one with the trees and evening sky red with the blush of the Creator.
Where Turtles Swim
Broken and bent I enter the gray morning, the earth sore and melancholy by dreams dashed on the barren shores of mediocrity. The surface of the sea breaks in waves yet down below the waters are calm, where turtles swim without haste. I drop into this depth and I too am carried by the silence […]
Near As Breath
Finding the well becomes a task. Haunted, near forgotten the once clear pool of water, thump of the bucket, smell of deep earth. Still as the curving bonsai I turn up to the rain, cool air on my face; what I want near as breath. Now I remember. […]
How It Will Be
When lights go down, the wheels stop turning we’ll be left with night sky, morning quiet, emptiness that welcomes. We’ll stop grinding our lives like corn and circle dance with whales. Our feet will drum the earth, the rivers rise with joy. We’ll be humans beneath a star filled sky, wondrous the beholding. […]
Easter
I slowly wake in winter’s cave, body stiff and sore. In gray skies trees bulge with sap, their flowers opening, the earth of another year pressing out into the visible. I drift back to sleep, doze in the soft dark as rivers fall with the joy of ice. A deep blanket pulled back by the […]
Cigarette
Oregon 1988 We stood on the porch, night sounds around us, the darkness comfortable, letting us be together without the impulse to talk electric light would bring. He held a cigarette in one hand as if holding it was a pleasure. After a while he asked me to find a match. I brought one from […]
Old Joe
“It was a shame wen dey kilt dat president” the old man said looking down on the colorful caladias “and dos utter gud men.” It was a shame Joe but what can you do? “Dere you are, holdin dat baby. Wat you tink?” What do I think about what Joe? “Bout what you cain do.” […]