In this moon story they enter a roiling primordial soup--where delineations arise and dissolve into lava flows and thick mud. In the impending sense of desolation, great potential looms. They enter through a feathered opening and don (or grow?) a pair of wings--tipped and dripping with luminous paint and an urge to splash the world with color. They sense the lava oozing forth from fissures in the Earth not as a threat, but as a way back to source. At the center, the lava has cooled and the rain has poured into and compacted the ground with thick mud--out of which arises a massive, old tortoise. They climb upon its back.

Moonwalk

Flip-side shadows:

murky land—moonlight

uneven footsteps—assurance of night vision

crouching in the dry, beach grass—trees bellowing foreboding groans

blasted by the ocean wind—skin to skin on my mother's breast

tethered—free.

Out on the boardwalk

Luna relumbrante.

Thoughts suspended in gravitational clarity.

Luna.

Misty undertow of dreams drawing in

the tide, the womb, the mind, the heart.

Obscurity in reverse:

murky sky—moondark

land disintegrating underfoot—eyes fixed above

arms outstretched on a gusty flight—forest emptied of creature stirrings

blasted by the night's stillness—pressed on by my mother's hand
anchored—free.

The Wall

My lover's words....

A few simple words. A request...

...the ill-treated child within my being read coercion.

My body continued but my mind coiled around the words and locked down until my body could no longer continue—until I couldn't speak or move.

I recoiled, escaped.

Trapped in a mental assault, with the bathroom light on, I latched onto the towels, hoping they'd provide some tenderness. When none came, and the voices grew louder, an icy rigidity seized my body. My eyes clamped open.

Each thought laid itself like a brick, stacking layer over layer over layer, sealing me out. The bricks rose higher and higher. Seconds became years. My mind sentenced me to an interminable, impenetrable misery of the wall. I longed for death, some end to it.

I removed myself to the couch and laid out an isolation shroud. I sank down, leaden and listless. Resigned.

Some filament of something began to grow through a tiny crack in the wall, too small to notice at first—a memory, the scent of sap, grounding, bare feet on the soil.

Wall construction continued. Resignation turned to a panic-stricken search for a door, some passageway through. My eyes darted back forth until they came upon a tiny root curling itself through, and stopped.

I reached out and touched its delicate, silken hairs.

“Go outside,” it whispered.

An answer: I could make my way through the wall, from the outside in, calling on the Earth. Though, at the time I didn't recognize how I'd get through in this way, the message was clear: go outside.

I pried myself off of the couch and willed myself back into the bedroom.

Clothes... protection from the cold.

His voice asked after me through the wall, from miles away. I could not answer.

Clothes, protection. Rigid mind and fingers fumbled through the dark to find them. My mind began to thicken the wall with new layers—but I could not forget the root and its message: go outside.

Clumsy hands grabbed his coat and heavy feet carried me down the stairs. As the cool air hit my face, tears came. Water for the root.

Wall construction hurtled on at a frenzied pace. My mind calling me to perform some drastic, self-destructive act—continuing to invite death, violence to dash out my thoughts.

But my feet were sure by now and carried me down the path, over fallen branches and to a cold, dew-soaked, mossy tree trunk. I reached out a hand and leaned in. Sobs leapt from my chest.

The salty water soaked the root. It began to stretch itself down to the Earth, upwards, sideways. Braiding and entwining itself. Taking form. Taking up the substance of the wall into itself. It was becoming an archway and light began to seep through.

I walked out from the forest and back to the path. I stepped out of my shoes and onto the roots of a giant read cedar. Here was all the tenderness I needed: the girth of its solid trunk, the sweet smells of its bark, the damp Earth. An ancestor to hold me, to stand with.

-->

The light flooded through the wall's rooted archway and into my body. The thoughts subsided. I could remember tenderness: his, my own, and the world's. I could go back with an opening in my heart.

-->

Forest Bathing

Full creek,
   cloudy with sediment
and the rush of fresh rains

a musty, mossy scent
thickens the air

the forest is fluttering,
   floating by
rivers of motion:

cascades of winter wren trills
branches heavy with buds
children
little dogs
muddy-footed runners
lovers

even the skinny jean advertisers
  are taking in
    the first luxurious morsels

of spring.

A lover is born!

Gratitude...

29 years ago today a lovely human being was born, somehow scooted, sat, cried, crawled, walked, ran, jumped, played and eventually made it across the street into my life. How wondrous a being he is and I love him dearly.

He sits across from me now, tea slurping, burping, lips pursing now and again as he reads. This lovely human being with whom I feel so at ease, even when riding grumpy, whiny, annoyed, fearful, anxiety-ridden waves, the ones I don't acknowledge in the company of pretty much anyone else.

Well, I love him dearly, what more is there to say? THank YOU Universe for this delicious beauty I get to share in, for this man, so of a man!

Deepity!

Gratitude. Months Later.

One teacher recommended simply saying gratitude to oneself and seeing what arises....

Gratitude:
Safe home
stuck (can't think of anything)
Breathing...
a loving companion (handsome, gentle)
The cat, full of cuteness, curled up, warm and snug, loves it when the heater's on.
Heat.
The miracle of electricity (somehow rushing water and wind bring light and heat to my living room, power this thing I'm typing on).

Pause.

Gratitude:
Socks, the hands that made them, packaged and shipped them. Hands in Mexico? China? India?
Every item in my cluttered living room touched by un-named hands.
Interdependence, somehow it all works.
A day to rest when ill, paid sick leave.
Stable work.
Supportive Family.

Today...
Making birthday cards for friends.
Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping late.

Remembering gratitude.

Written sketch: cat, lover, guitar

There is a stuck bit.
Uncorking.......

Cat pouncing on her prey of air, shadow and string.

The lover whistles Star Wars and asks,
"Whatcha writins?"
addresses the cat, then removes his guitar from its case and sits.

Tuning and tinkering. Nimble fingers remember rhythms and patterns
like a young boy calling his dog out to play fetch.
It's a game they both know quite well
boy, ball and dog
fingers, strings and vibrations.
When he sits in the corner, strumming, what a beautiful dance of plunking,
strumming, pressing, face scrunching,
head tilted down and slightly to one side
encouraging the notes to come forward like shy little children,
ever so gently, ever so persistently.
There's a luxurious, honeyed serenity in his expression,
a silent joy.
The beauty of concentration wrapped delicately in each of his movements.

Squack!
Squeak!
'barassed, looking over now and again at this spy.

He stops playing.



Notes
ebb
and
flow.
And again they waSH over me.

He switches guitars and addresses the cat a second time.
Again tUnInG
again  f l o w i n g  notes.

His left pinky curls in and out ever so slightly about the air
while the other fingers press down on the strings, so rapidly
as to land in a blur.

He moves the capo up and down the neck
slipping from one song into the next,
yawns
protests at my request for further playing
but hugs in his guitar in for one final tune.

"What's happening?
Whatcha doin' over there?"

Vanishing Act

Sandy footsteps stolen by gusts of wind,
laughing away any physical remnants of
our walk in the canyon.
Does the cold granite remember the warmth of me?
Or the flittering tendrils of butterfly feet
that alighted upon it?

Heaving breaths and footfalls later,
the thrasher zigzagged among boulders and cholla,
dancing along the threads of its harmonic web;
ducking, perching, puffing, calling out,
frozen and piercing with its amber eye,
then off again.

                                                 Tracing backward:
Before slip-sliding down gravel paths
and climbing out from the hills' shadow,
whispers of water seduced my parched ears.
Evidence of her sweetness
in the smooth grooves and dry canals,
the force of her reduced to
a few damp patches of earth and one trickling puddle.
She vanished;
a hint of willow green,
sweet nectar for the mourning cloak...

...transient desert Mother.

Gratitude contd.

Words of the Elders

first a chink in the dam,

eroded, one drop at a time,

love's waters slowly smooth away the rough edges;

silty earthen nectar pours out,

coloring, mixing, swirling, sloshing, settling,

until the river flows a deep, muddy red.

Pema, Robert, Larry, Margaret, Sylvia, (elders)... 

thank you for your guiding words, spoken from the heart.

May they be among the drops that start the flood

of gratitude, love, wisdom and freedom.

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."

Oscar Wilde

I have read his poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol and wept. It broke my heart. I wonder at my dream and if it was leading me to this, some healing. These verses seem most poignant...

"I never saw sad men who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

We prisoners called the sky,

And at every careless cloud that passed

In happy freedom by."

and

"I know not whether Laws be right,

Or whether Laws be wrong;

All that we know who lie in gaol

Is that the wall is strong;

And that each day is like a year,

A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law

That men have made for Man,

Since first Man took his brother's life,

And the sad world began,

But straws the wheat and saves the chaff

With a most evil fan.

This too I know—and wise it were

If each could know the same—

That every prison that men build

Is built with bricks of shame,

And bound with bars lest Christ should see

How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon,

And blind the goodly sun:

And they do well to hide their Hell,

For in it things are done

That Son of God nor son of Man

Ever should look upon!

The vilest deeds like poison weeds

Bloom well in prison-air:

It is only what is good in Man

That wastes and withers there:

Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,

And the Warder is Despair.

For they starve the little frightened child

Till it weeps both night and day:

And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,

And gibe the old and gray,

And some grow mad, and all grow bad,

And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell

Is a foul and dark latrine,

And the fetid breath of living Death

Chokes up each grated screen,

And all, but Lust, is turned to dust

In Humanity's machine."

(weeping here)

"The brackish water that we drink

Creeps with a loathsome slime,

And the bitter bread they weigh in scales

Is full of chalk and lime,

And Sleep will not lie down, but walks

Wild-eyed, and cries to Time.

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst

Like asp with adder fight,

We have little care of prison fare,

For what chills and kills outright

Is that every stone one lifts by day

Becomes one's heart by night.

With midnight always in one's heart,

And twilight in one's cell,

We turn the crank, or tear the rope,

Each in his separate Hell,

And the silence is more awful far

Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near

To speak a gentle word:

And the eye that watches through the door

Is pitiless and hard:

And by all forgot, we rot and rot,

With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life's iron chain

Degraded and alone:

And some men curse, and some men weep,

And some men make no moan:

But God's eternal Laws are kind

And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,

In prison-cell or yard,

Is as that broken box that gave

Its treasure to the Lord,

And filled the unclean leper's house

With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy they whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!

How else may man make straight his plan

And cleanse his soul from Sin?

How else but through a broken heart

May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat,

And the stark and staring eyes,

Waits for the holy hands that took

The Thief to Paradise;

And a broken and a contrite heart

The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law

Gave him three weeks of life,

Three little weeks in which to heal

His soul of his soul's strife,

And cleanse from every blot of blood

The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,

The hand that held the steel:

For only blood can wipe out blood,

And only tears can heal:

And the crimson stain that was of Cain

Became Christ's snow-white seal.

VI

In Reading gaol by Reading town

There is a pit of shame,

And in it lies a wretched man

Eaten by teeth of flame,

In a burning winding-sheet he lies,

And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,

In silence let him lie:

No need to waste the foolish tear,

Or heave the windy sigh:

The man had killed the thing he loved,

And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,

By all let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword."

I am grateful for these beautiful words.

Being in Transformation

My dream last night had beings in it that, for all intents and purposes, were human. They looked human, they lived human lives, and interacted as humans. But they had been through some kind of transformation that either set them apart from other humans, or made them somehow not human. I was contacted by a man and woman who had been through the transformation. They led my partner and me to a remote setting in the woods and were offering to perform a kind of ritual that would complete my transformation. My partner, as I learned, had been through the ritual already. The process had happened at night, in a small wooden yurt. As it was explained to me, I visualized a purplish, white light radiating from Andrew, and hearing a poem recited. Apparently, in the moment of transformation, each person had their own poem that would evoke an intense emotional response and bring to light all the pain they had been blind to in their life. The way to transform was to stay with the pain, to hold it. The woman told me that my ritual was to take place the coming evening, but I woke up before it came about.

A new one

It's UNcomfortable.

This new precipice from which

my feet are dangling.

There's a sea

of manowars down below

watching my every twitch

and squirgle.

What would happen were I

to fall from it?

Perhaps the manowars

would be naught but seaweed,

harmless,

though a bit tangly.

Perhaps I would be dashed

against the jagged rocks,

or slip into a sea cave

full of fabulous gems

and mermen.

But here I still sit, on the edge,

belly leaping into my chest,

heart expanding into my belly.

Naught to do but surrender.