Burial Song
8/20/2009
Bury my body that long roots may pull
their earthen breath from softened skull
and lay a thousand seeds to reach
and sprout upon my fingers each
and slip their softened arms in mine
for endless months that hold up time
let all my body turn to love,
let life enumerate above
let fruit and flower spine and fall
and leaves and stars be seamless stalls
of course I spring above the sky
and bow in dance a whispered life
a light in ever cell you sew
but farther than your mind can know
No earthen joy approximates,
the lilted climb my spirit makes
upon the stair of lifted song
into my lover’s holy arms.
The Change
9/15/2010
Would you believe that the darkness once consumed me
and yet I stand before you bright and lighter than you knew me
and I have within me tools to use that catalyzed and grew me
and a path to walk beneath the sky whose stars guided my journey.
Early Light
5/21/2013
Listening to the deepest tree
she tells me her true love story
and I have heard many a tale
but none so sweet as she regales.
Her branches softly touching me,
the sweetness of her mystery
and loves pure dripping leaves that grow
from unions hidden from the snow.
“I have no story but this one”
“And I have none!”
She laughs, I’ve sung.
So none and one sit sweetly here,
and we are all of life with her
true love story that breathes our sight,
resting here in early light.
Four Love Shorties
6/23/2011
(1) Cut Your Tethers to Not-Aloneness
Cut your tethers to not-aloneness
for in its presences lies its absence
cut away what holds you hoping
something will surrender you its essence
and provide you with a bridge
to something-else-but-not-thisness.
For there is nothing here to spin with;
to weave a cloth to wipe your tears with
Just your bright and present herewith
for you to let away the fears with.
(2) Timeless
Let this heart with all its trusting love
find the spaces in between and follow the river
to the source of time
and there in its watching, break the clock with its silent fingers
and set to the meadows
to sit with its leaves and eternity of breathing.
(3) You Are That
Unbent from warm twine,
the listening bird moves into a whisper
You are still, watching only
for a shiver, a twitch in its soft feather
the air opening, your breath moving under the leaves
until you find yourself
balanced on low hanging branches
dripping sunlit songs like raindrops
on passersby.
(4) Simply Put
Here in love
all of our expectations are tested
here in Love
We get to count up all of our wishes and toss them
Here in love
we get to deepen in our own profession
sign on as the expert of our direction
let go of fantasies of fulfillment
live each moment expressing what we’re feeling
knowing the truth and beauty in return for what we’re giving
is a reflection of the space of love in which we’re living.
The Gown
12/15/2009
To lift the gown of desire and love
And find something soft as the other
And weigh them each in both your hands
To know one through another
And spill them would they drip or move
And crack them would they never
or leave them for the weight of time
To move aside her weather.
To lift the bridge between two lives
And wade across through water
And meet between your shore and mine
And know one through the other
To spend a thousand, given nine
Or tell one was another
Though time has bent me all aside
And left me but a feather.
Write from me all my weathers, old
And doubts so newly mended
That when you comb away still hold
Another’s thoughts upended.
Wash me deeply that I last
Though soon I am incended
To live a thousand lives and know
A single was intended.
The Healing Place
5/29/2010
Let me be your center
Your rock and your relief.
Your place to come for answers,
Your place to come for peace.
Let the heaviness of your burden
That you’ve held without a word
Fall from you and be certain
That I will hear how you have hurt
And I will know without relenting
What there is within you still
Even if you doubt that it
Is real or can be felt.
And I will see when you’ve forgotten
There is a place for faith in love
And watch you reach the deepest place
Knowing what’s above.
Here Is a Theory On Love
2/18/2011
Here is a theory on love:
Were it the heart that sung softly her quiet song,
(seeing you wed between branches
with your long fingers touching the leaves,
your eyes full of their wideness
nothing expansive or less, just mended elbows
and mined heart leaning into the scent of birch)
Then, she would have less than a word
and the waves of the mind grasping at this infinite essence
(love) would go pushing into the distance,
leaving only her stillness (love), miles of it
and here, in our small boat
(watching them vanish searching for wild things
to name and shout about)
we would suddenly realize
we were anchored on a reef, bursting with life
invisible from an ocean surface rippled by storm or unrest.
This is the caution of passion: She makes noise,
tripping over the skindeep beauty of a lover,
or the way their footsteps leave echoes of infinity
in the hallways of our mortality
Distracting, always, from what is being spoken
by the mute core of the soul
finding in itself: itself.
I Am Listening
2/2/2010
I want to give you back
everything I took away.
Veins of liquid lava,
crown of pure agate & smoke
fields of gentle wind
moving barley and fava,
moving the ache
out of our shells…
I can feel my bones release,
no longer holding against themselves
all that is left of you
and me. No longer
contracted against hurting or running
or crying.
My limbs are woven with new cloth
threads of brilliant hue poured
upon my hidden skin
but I do not recognize
New or Old, only now,
I am listening.
Learning
12/27/2009
What is it to treasure, to hold so valuable
something unknown to you… whose shape
you discover in wonder has hidden
faces, universes held quietly beneath
sharp elbows… and your own amazement,
were it softer… or less hidden, could it
mend you? Wavering on the edge…
wanting to love… but can you? A heart so
bruised may jerk violently against an
untrained hand… but you are safe,
opening slowly unto healing.
It’s okay. Your pain has an old
face… it only looks like it knows what it’s doing.
Let it break. You are still breathing.
Bend close to me. I can hear you moving…
behind the hardness, that I pick away..
Can you love, sweet child? a question
absurd but Are You Willing? and here
you sleep against me and I wait until you
wake and toe the sand with vague uncertainty.
Hi. That is still not you.
For it is easy to believe what is within us
is small, untrained, needing… but it
is something far greater. Indeed a great
earthquake – it is the sun and stars
and the movement of flocks against the sky
and the deep growl of a hidden lion ready
to burst against herds of prey…
would you not come stumbling (your hair crowned
in wreaths of sweet clover) into the open field
giggling, with the movement of continents
in your eyes. Indeed the ocean running
each cell of your skin.
Here we release the hand that held us
believing us to be small
and fearing our wideness. I am no
delicate flower against the moonlight,
I am a guardian and a stem of lightning who can lean
with delicacy to know the flower
and reach my hand above the mountain
to touch the stars, trail my toes against the
deepest ocean floor… knowing you, knowing me.
Here, I am released.
Let Your Heart Break
5/28/2010
Let your heart break honey,
let it open you wide
until you see the things
you’ve hidden inside
until you open the doors
you closed to those
who would only love you
and hold you close.
Until you see
the light break new
the dawn above
come shining through,
let your heart break honey
let the sky fall too
let the mountains open
and swallow you.
You’ll see someday…
you’ll know it’s true
your love gets bigger
if you can let this through.
Let Yourself Into Love
5/23/2010
Let yourself into love
Big, fat, juicy love…
Clean, hard, stinging love
Love that leaks in through the rooftop
Love that goes ping, ping, ping
on that metal plate you call a big heart
Get a bucket… better yet, get a bathtub
Because it’s going to rain love
until the floor turns into fresh grass
and vines crawl to cover the walls,
drawing their leafy ears over the photographs
of things you took for granted…
Goodbye little love filled with things,
made of silly string, egg whites…
Here’s the real meat of love,
the pearl in the oyster, the head of the pin
bigger than your fingertip…
you gotta leave behind all your big excuses,
your bags made for packing and running away
Because love… is here to stay.
Love hangs you up when you’ve been soaked through
says eat your vegetables
says You got a great big smile, I love to see it
Love laughs because laughing feels good,
because your body feels good curving
against Love’s shoulder in a laugh,
giving everything back with a big bow tie
and a new coat of paint…
You make it better, because you do it together.
Love makes it work.
So let your head back,
let all the words out of your throat,
let your lips form the shape of letters
that shape love, but spell everything but love…
Linger on Love’s doorstep, let the healing sink in,
love waits for you. Love knows you
and there isn’t much more,
that can give you back,
what you’re looking for.
Love Me, Says the Softness
10/6/2011
“Love me,” says the softness.
Bending in to listen, I whisper:
“Yes?” And there is no response.
And then, bubbling: “Love me.”
I have no words to fend this,
or deliver a response.
I just wait: “Love me.”
I’m loving you, I feel.
Simple as the sun rising
without our pleas (Please rise!)
It rises, dripping yellow rivers
for our eyes.
“I am softening,” says the body.
Bending in to listen, I whisper:
“Yes?” and “Oh!” It cries, whimpering,
gently releasing its tired holding,
the walls slipping, disappearing.
“You are here,” I touch its soft skin
and draw it softly through the skies.
“You are loving me?”
Little body, so full of eyes,
“Vanish into me,” I whisper,
kissing its skin and breathing its sighs.
The Nest (A Children’s Story)
8/11/2010
She let into her heart
all those things that she’d hidden…
The tall things, the dark things,
the round things & with them…
She held with such warmth
That they all curled up in her
and quieted down,
learned to be kinder.
And the slow moving wind
And the whispering trees
And the deep decayed soil
where she knelt in reprieve
Were there like her allies
as life is yours too…
So she stood up to take in
a spectacular view.
Peace Here, Wide Heart
5/26/2010
Peace, I have written your name in those long hallways,
chased you down the pass of highways
felt you nearer than my own heartbeat, skin,
and then I hid from you,
following the trail of another’s breadcrumbs.
Peace, you push aside the sting
Turn my deep mind into a placid ocean,
I have a strong boat, but the waves that shook her hull
obscured it.
Here, let me wash away the struggle
may I hold your clean body against the future
may I see you with deep clarity,
may I reach heaven and hell
with unending diameter…
Here, I haven’t much practice
but the things that torment me
are tall as the shadows cast by a moving flame
Wide heart, let the sun shine overhead
May I be connected to you and you only
may I stand in your sweet falling water
letting the things that cling to me
like old wrapping, melt and peel…
Wide heart, I want to know you like the back of my handprint
like the stretch of cold stars
that remind me of home
Let me into your sweet harbor
let me walk your quiet shores
amazed at your surroundings.
May I breathe you and move deeper
into the space you make within me.
petal
11/8/2009
Let only the mountain love you
let its song into your heart
and its strength be god’s delight who
saw you opened from the start
Let the aisle of love be green with life
and the sweetness move around you
bear the sound of her into the night
and plant her that she find you.
The River’s Path
5/21/2013
I wasn’t
the one some fear whispers as promises are not met
Trust
Says another voice
one I have known longer yet
For what?
The eager thinker pries
but no more secrets does she bely
and all these lost and labored thoughts
are clamored at the door to rest
and want so many things a thought
could never have; could not be bought.
So what?
The thoughts have died and now
a soaring wave rises the cloud
and crashes down upon the crown
and drips below the collarbone
This love is your deep pulsing right
That through its rivered path you might
Find back the way to life’s true home
inside you, here, it is all along.
Sewn
7/3/2010
There were flowers in the garden…
her ripened toes turned in against the grasses softened
the weight of delighting had spent its last shining wish
on tall things pardoned
But there was much more she realized,
craning her neck, digging her fingers back
until they grew like tiny roots back into the soil.
Many things about life weave in and out of music –
the daily ordinariness of a melody,
the chorus rising in a gust of wind
Since she was small, her eyes shone like a big ocean
Sometimes it is not that on which you gaze
but your gaze that softens the hard edges,
brightens the shadows, blends a face into a smile.
Her mother had told her, bending into the low grass,
the flowers flickering below her eyes
with every movement, every laugh…
How her father’s heart had healed her;
mended the dark sky with his two hands in one fell swoop
when she had been sewing the pieces for years.
It is magic, she said, that children can describe love
without ever knowing its deepest fragrance
or the way it shapes the pale snow against the hillside
or draws the sun over the horizons with invisible strings.
She would know someday, how she could understand
when at first she was loving simply,
that love would change and deepen
and take hold of her slowly, as the soil takes hold of tiny roots
and draws them deeper to be grown,
though she may move and find everything
her mother’s heart has seen and known.
Taking Down the Pictures, Washing the Walls
6/15/2010
I am watching this wide clear sky
turn the shadows into deep waves of firelight
I am turning slowly into a big thing.
Tie my necklaces around the waist of short tree wings
Leave behind the long gowns for maidens drowning
Sleep inside the wet earth nightly,
unpinning the pictures of kings hung brightly
beside the scribbles and the dark things hidden
like soft sweet burrowers by wild things bitten
Nothing was ever really that hard –
we as humans are brilliant creatures,
our only achilles heel
the mind tripping over what we feel
But we still fall and we still kneel
and drop into the dirt
watching the road down which they left
forgetting they could not return
from death.
White things, washed clean,
let them go, over the edge
of the big ship
you rode home, big wide hat,
wind moving distant stars
that whispered future secrets to your heart.
Some things would wait
if you’d keep wishing they had the strength
to believe that all pain can be washed
slowly, like old painted walls,
out of the heart…
Let me sit here God, big thing out there/in here
touched only by the radiance of a single thought
That in my stillness all the tangled things
would be slowly woven into tapestries
to wear or hang, for beauty or warmth,
and to know that inside me are all the perfect things
that move and hold the earth and sun and stars.
there is nothing to lose
4/20/2011
You have to let go of things sometimes
Quietly. With the strength inside your heart
shining.
and when the river comes to take you
Lend your whole self
for the taking. Go with the river, see the darkness become
Perfect – The shape of the heavens
moving with it, and you… echoing your every footstep.
That is so “Released”. So silent.
So perfect in its finding
and so relieved, that it has itself.
Find in yourself only this: Deep Relief.
That you are always finding
yourself without picking up the pieces;
or tracing the roots back to the source.
There is nothing to lose
so just let it.
treedweller
11/17/2009
Here I bend, I lean against the shallow door
a hesitant visitor, listening for
her small breathing
Hello? a knock, no heavier than a scratch
I wait for movement…
and lean my forehead against the door,
let only stillness surround us…
brilliance, stars, our roots entwined
beneath the cool soil. May I embrace her,
lift her, that gentle side of me,
that hides rooted in that wilderness,
and close my eyes for an instant
that I might always see.
When You Can Let Yourself Fall
10/8/2012
When you can let yourself Fall
(meeting what is happening with a
Hi How Are You Nice To Meet You,
Not a No Thank You, Not You, Not Today, Good Bye)
You really Wake Up.
Some people are scared of this.
They write nightmares aimed at This.
You Think: If I could just STOP this,
then I could really get on TOP-of this…
Oh, life.
Oh, winning.
Oh, wringing… stressing, bringing
(so much suffering)
to your own door,
calling the wolves with your wolf call:
Noooooo!!!!
Life loves you,
brings you bees and lovers and raindrops
Life hugs you,
with your sky, your covers, your teardrops
Life gives you songs and singing
and slipping and sliding
and if you had a better answer,
you could tell it,
and someone,
would surely,
sell it.
Wild Heart
12/3/2010
Let me bring my wild heart
with all of its apologies
to the river, where it can be washed
where I kneel, gently,
washing the hair of a child.
How did you get thorns under your fingernails
and mud in your ears, wild thing.
What a funny creature, the heart…
running off to find the tallest tree
to swing from every branch
howling melodies that would make you cry
if you were really listening.
Do we ever grow up?
Never; not really.
Wood Song
12/18/2009
Here though it rains the sun may stem
its light, reaching through cracks
in clouds stretched like fields.
One who has never felt the rain, really felt it;
stood washed and inviting,
calling each drop out of the sky: letting it comb
the terror, heaviness, silence
from each fiber of hair, skin, cloth…
Would they know the brilliance and luster
of standing, of inviting in the eternal.
Here you must lay to rest the seeking and turn inward
to see that which burns within
can never be snuffed… by rain or hurricane.
Wild woman, tongue of ripe thorns, pick away the
hardness. Pour yourself into the river. Take the
crown of declarations from your golden hair
and leave it for roughness that birds
might wind nests to mend it.
Let love bloom only to hold you, raptured goddess
that you might feed wild hens and walk the forest,
clothed in gentle fabric,
or bend against the ripened wood to find families
of game nestled sleeping.
and when you have wandered and your seeking has
turned its delicate face against its final tide,
may doorways lit by firelight, call you back from
columns of moonlight… to hang knots of leaf and flower
and enter gently that place which holds softly
all that is left to be discovered.