Day 4: The Pages

The gift of this moment.
How does it reside with you?
Can you hold in your heart the trees
that were felled to carry these words?
Can the calls of the birds
who rested, fed and nested in their branches
echo in its chambers?
Can the gentle breezes
that tickled and shook their boughs
cool and soothe its aches and palpitations?
Can the sweetness of their sap
flow from its valves,
filling every cavity of your body,
and spill back into the earth?
Come revel in her,
she beckons to you.

Day 3: Rosamond

You hold my shakiest moments,

and I yours,

and we often take each other for granted,

though our hearts tell us otherwise.

It pains terribly me to see you suffer,

and so I know that you are more than a friend,

and we have woven ourselves into sisterhood.

My sincere wish for you is happiness beyond limit.

I wish to see you smile from the deepest reaches of your heart,

and extend to yourself the same boundless love

I have heard you say others deserve.

I wish that we stand with each other

despite the many faces we may put on in baring the seasons of this life.

And when the fruit of our bond is ripe,

I wish that we let go completely,

so that its divine sweetness may nourish others in their time.

Dearest friend, sister,

it is with the deepest sense of gratitude

that I walk beside you in this world.

Day 2: The Welcoming Neighbors

A lovely little haven lives right next door to me.
Through the gate: poppies, basil, living green,
chicken clucks, shade, running water.
Where friends invite you for dinner,
for conversation, for treats from the garden,
for sweets from the oven.
These friends send the soothing lull
of harp tones, send encouraging words to your ears,
lend shovels, soil, wheel barrows, bike parts
to help you on your way.
So alive with color and warmth,
it's a pleasure to think on
the little haven that lives next door to me,
and an honor to know its keepers,
who hold such a sweet space in this world.

Gratitude Challenge Accepted!

I had a lovely meeting with a friend last night. Somewhere in our conversation, he encouraged me to challenge my powers of gratitude, by writing a daily poem to some object, person, place or experience I feel grateful for.

Sitting out on my stoop this morning brought on a wave of happy to be alive feelings, and a reminder of the conversation. So now, one poem later, I am setting the intention to take on the gratitude poem challenge, and write one poem of gratitude every day for a week. Once at the end of the week, I will reevaluate, and see if I can extend the challenge for full month.

Day 1:

Ode to Marigold

Bud after bud, bloom after bloom,
you're a vibrant little splash in the garden.
It's as though all of autumn's color
dove into your delicate petals,
to rinse the eyes in a raucous spectrum;
a delicious draught
of golden, orange, scarlet, yellow delirium.

Here on the Mountain

I've written my first "real" song on the banjo. Here are the lyrics...

A million hands are clasped

Along the mountainside

To withstand the echoing blast

And bellows from the sky

Trembling, aching, slow

One hand lets go

Pressed against my heart

A hand that quakes and starts

Chorus:

Here on the mountain

The spring flows

The clouds roll

Here on the mountain

I’ve left my heart

Here on the mountain

the lake’s clear

the heat sears

Here on the mountain

I’ll find my heart

I follow her up the crest

The million watch our steps

That carry us to the lake

She plunges to its depths

I wade out behind

And sink into the pool

The hand that held my heart

Finds me trembling too

Repeat Chorus

The clouds clear from the sky

Sun pours into the lake

Into the little one and I

Urging us to wake

Repeat Chorus

Here on the mountain

I’ll find her

and hold her

Here on the mountain

My little one

Here on the mountain

Lake water clear

Sun’s heat sears

Here on the mountain

I’ve found my heart

Poem 3

I have seen the deaths
of those I hold dearest
unfold the mist from my eyes,
like the cleansing sunlight of dawn.
What's left? Heartbeat,
an inhale... the screeching of 1,000 wild boars,
an exhale... deafening silence,
an inhale... the mist curling back
through a forest of firs,
beneath the mountain,
and into the Source; the spring
and its whispering trickle.
Count, on the inhale,
the rows and rows of images,
each a gateway
to a memory
of being held
in the gaze of the Beloved morning light.

Poem 2

Those that enter this fabric
are standing and watching
from the side view,
but are closer than they appear.
Their eyes are made of triangles;
harps pressed into golden eggs.
If you look at them closely,
they eviscerate, become dust on a windowsill,
or shape-shifting clouds of ash.
If you squint, they might
drip down the side
and leave the impression
of a man who's hanged himself.
All the more gruesome in their lifeless form,
shocking you into wakefulness,
sending you into convulsions,
then dissipating into a deep, graduated silence.
Listen.
What do the voices say?
I am undone, and continuous,
without context.

Poem 1

Intent, as a silver wisp of light,
woven into this body,
with its origins in the technicolor fabric
of a grandfather's loving presence,
was gobbled by honey bees,
whose salivation gave the world its sweet golden glow.
Such a light met with many musty,
earthen rows of ancestral tombs,
echoing
"Beware of holding onto what never happened.
Remember to stop remembering
and reside in the unknown."