It is enough that the breeze is cool and the mockingbird sings its thirteen songs. It is enough, though Ted is dying and Barbara as well as Nancy died suddenly, that even so I feel… More
Advice From A Live Oak
to the Owner of the Mercedes Floating Down the Street in Miami
Listen, you there...step back from the edge of the precipice you’ve come upon with no warning (in your mind). Here now, at your winter home in Florida, you stand on the crumbling asphalt watch your Mercedes float by as if it was your yacht .Nearby, as if in a dream, you hear someone saying words like aquifer, global warming, unsustainableBut you don’t understand any language not spoken in banks. You shout your mantraFix it! Fix it! You shiver in the heat under the roof you constructed over the planet. Listen This is how you got here:You looked at me through blinders and called me a tree. Then you named me:Live Oak. I became a fact you could dismiss or use as it suited When you cut me and my sap ran you did not recall the stickiness of your own blood. So, I knew that our reunion would have to wait until we had no choice. Like now. Before you were too busy. You dug mines, drained swamps, smothered the soil with cement slashed the forests and fields forced water where it did not want to flow. Now you are surprised. You order the seawalls to be rebuilt higher again and again,yet the waves roar at them and they succumb over and over.For comfort, you grab at your pockets for your rosary of coins. On the news you see Coyotes leap over the walls of your mansion Panthers roam the yard Black bears rummage through your trash swim at their leisure in your Olympic-sized pools. your homes are hidden behind steel gates but the animals know these woods and marshes they have mapped the paths in their veins feel the contours of the land in their hearts see through the dark know exactly what needs knowing upon the air. You reach into your vault of millions for your talisman of dollars and find a time bomb lodged in one corner. When this bomb is triggered by the last floods and the final fires even you will become brethren to the lowest insect, the stalk of grass. For the first time, you hear the alarms.Your senses open like a deer listening for the hunter’s next step. Listen, here was your next mistake You mowed when it was time to sow. Demolished what it was time to save. You understood how to ravage but not how to prune. Now is the time to listen. Listen to what speaks quietlyi n both of us: Live… live… live... The Great Extinction Even if you aren’t a believer your feet have faith in the earth your lungs are believers in the air your thirst trusts in water. We are held, nourished with no effort of our own. What other love gives so freely? This is holiness crucified by those who once again know not what they do.
Centered
When you find yourself standing on the edge of a cliff be still just be be a lighthouse watchful steady as you search for safety and Illuminate the stormy, starless darkness as waves crash to loosen your rocky foundation just be and you will see through fog what could be saved, what could not and how what remains precious and real remains after the wreckage. When you find yourself standing in the middle of the highway be still just be be a boulder your power peaceful settled and solid certain of your place on the land energy contained silent and sustained as traffic roars past relentless, ruthless pounding down on asphalt like thunder headlights striking you like lightning bolts, be still just be so you can let go of what passes, always passes, so you understand what lasts always lasts.
What Remains
What passes? Dreams on night air and nightmares words spoken notes played the flight of birds laughing through the sky an embrace a kiss. our bodies. What is completed? A teacup, Its purpose served, the crack appears, a memory sealed with one gold thread. What remains? Wide blue sky silence that fills a canyon.
Inspired Writing Workshop: The Wisdom of Transformative Stillness, Leonard Cohen, Pico Iyer, Pablo Neruda
*Not only for experienced writers. Join in even if you don’t think you can write!. You will surprise yourself!
Dear People,
During these trying times, it can help to be inspired by wisdom, humor and profound observations. For those who do not know me: I am a published writer, and have been teaching writing at the college level for the past twenty years. I’ve always found inspiration for my own writing from writers and thinkers, and so am offering these workshops to inspire your own thinking and writing.
In this workshop, we will read short inspiring selections from many wisdom traditions then discuss one of these before we write. Some of the excerpts will be philosophical, some disturbing, some comforting, others just playful or funny.
Our writing will be whatever we are inspired to write after our discussions. Sharing what we write will be optional, but encouraged. I will also offer writing guidance based on Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, and others.
Here is an example of a quote we might discuss and write about: If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. (Rainer Maria Rilke)
When: Each Sunday September 5-26, 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM
Cost: Sliding scale according to need, from $20-$50.
If interested, please reply to this blog or to andapeterson@yahoo.com
Brutus, Gus, a Slime Mold and Me
The Western mind draws a sharp boundary between humans and the rest of the world….for the Western mind, it is hard to recognize mind in animals, whereas for the Japanese mind, it is hard not to do so.~~Semiotician Yoshimi Kawade, written in 1998
That quote gets me to thinking…
Brutus, the lab mix that I often dog sit, sends me love with a look. He and I look directly, usually silently, into each other’s eyes each time we want to tell each other something. It’s simple. Direct. Clear. A type of mind reading. I’ve learned from dogs and cats how much can be said by the eyes.
With Brutus and Gus, the tiger-striped cat, words are seldom necessary even though I use them out of habit. Brutus and Gus hear me make sounds. Brutus looks at me patiently until I make myself clear.; Gus is less patient and will walk off unless I add a treat to the sounds.
I think, that people need dogs and cats for more than the unconditional love (well, conditioned as for Gus the cat)—we get sick and tired of talking.
Or we can’t stop talking around people and can only be quiet with our pets. Words are hard to come by. The right ones. Words can be so difficult to find. Those we speak are often the ones we repeat out of habit; they aren’t the words available, or even appropriate often, in the present moment, if we took the time to notice those.
People don’t listen for the most part. Dogs listen. They learn the meaning of words.directed to them. When I say “car” or “beach” or “cookies” to Brutus, he comes to a happy attention. Have we learned any language from other animals in the same way?
Our words come from minds filled with past and future, so how accurate are they? How wise? Meanwhile, my stock and trade is, ironically, words; I’m a writer and a teacher. However, I’ve been investigating the mind in the way of the as a Buddha and I am starting to see its limitations.
Intelligence in Nature, An Inquiry into Knowledge, by Jeremy Narby, an anthropologist, is filled with words for 243 pages. Since they are written instead of spoken, they have been carefully chosen and re-thought many times; writing can be a more clearway to use words than speaking. Narby writes about the intelligence he and other scientists, have discovered in creatures great and minuscule (like nematodes). “A slime mold,” he writes,” in a maze has the capacity to apprehend its situation and act on its knowledge.” He makes the point that there are more forms of intelligence than we ever dreamed of. A Western mind has to overcome hundreds of years of the myth of human intellectual superiority.
Recently I read in Narby’s book that “Information of one kind or another is consistently circulating in nature, in particular in the form of biochemical molecules. The world is streaming with signs. Not so long ago, some people considered the use of signs a specifically human trait.”
All this is to say, that I am searching as I write: what is nature telling me? What is it I am missing? Can I become better at reading the signs life is posting? We’ll see…
Inspired Writing: From Silly to Wise–A Four Week Workshop*, or “Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.” ― Einstein
*Not only for experienced writers. Join in even if you don’t think you can write!. You may surprise yourself!
photo from Google photos
Dear People,
During these trying times, it can help to be inspired by wisdom, humor and profound observations. For those who do not know me: I am a published writer, and have been teaching writing at the college level for the past twenty years. I’ve always found inspiration for my own writing from writers and thinkers, and so am offering a workshop to inspire your own writing.
In this four week workshop, we will read short inspiring selections from many wisdom traditions as well as by humorists, chefs, visual artists, philosophers, comedians, fiction and non-fiction writers and poets, then we’ll discuss one of these before we write. Some of the passages will be philosophical, some comforting, others just delightful, playful or funny.
Subjects will range from food to furniture from silly, to spiritual.
Our writing will be whatever we are inspired to say after our discussion. Sharing what we write will be optional, but encouraged. I will also offer writing guidance based on Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, and others.
Here is an example of the types of passages we could consider:
“As you unfold as an artist, just keep on, quietly and earnestly, growing through all that happens to you. You cannot disrupt this process more violently than by. looking outside yourself for answers that may only be found by attending to your innermost feeling.”~~~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Here’s another: “You have to stay in shape. My mother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She’s 97 now and we have no idea where she is.” ~~George Carlin, comedian
The first session will be free. If you choose to continue, the cost will be $60.00 for the four week workshop.
Begins once per week October 1st-November 5th (day and time be determined) via Zoom (instructions will follow)
If you are interested, please email me at andapeterson@yahoo.com, or leave a comment here.
What kind of courage do we need? We must accept reality in all its immensity…the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to meet the strangest, most awesome and most inexplicable of phenomena.~~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
The Courage We Need is
to stand alone
on the dance floor.
The courage we need is
to stay steady
as we feel the foundation cracking
to see clearly
through lies
thick as heavy blankets
as the sleepers
pretend wakefulness.
The courage we need is
to refuse
the safety
of the trance.
The courage we need is
to love with a broken heart,
shed fears like leaves,
bend, bow
and continue.
Chicago, for Fred Hampton and Larvell Henderson, my Irving School Classmates
Today my hometown music
sets the groove
for the dance
soul sway
joy drum
beats
saxophone
shouts
in this coffee shop.
I remember
Chicago rhythm
and blues
how the projects
loom over expressways
the “El” clatters
shakes the rattling windows
of a tenement
screeching to a scheduled stop
from the eleventh floor, a five-year-old watches
big-eyed
as below cars speed
downtown
the refrain “Stand by me…”
fills the air from somewhere near
before the deafening roar of the train
passes the boy
I feel the
faith
not mine but
unshakeable
his brother waiting
sitting on the stoop
at noon
job denied
one more time.
In third grade Fred and Larvell were my friends.
When I was ten
Larvell's mother was shot.
When I was twenty,
Fred was shot in his bed.
In my car, Marvin Gaye sings
“Makes me Wanna Holler, Throw up Both My Hands…”
on the radio.
I feel faith between the notes, love
not mine, but
from a distance, mine too
as I drive to the South Side
singing, weeping
with Marvin
to my job at the welfare
warfare office.
Who Will Explain?
The brown-eyed children,
under silver blankets
that sparkle like Christmas tinsel
or gleaming party gowns
worn at country clubs,
sleep on the cold, cement floor
but do not understand
the wire cages,
their loneliness
the long, hot walk
through the desert.
Do they wonder,
as children will,
what they did wrong?
Who will explain
to them
this land that hates them,
these people who sleep
on silk sheets
walk on marble floors,
washed by brown-eyed women,
take cool rides
in shiny new trucks
through the desert
like cruel-eyed matadors
immune to the pain
of the bull,
drunk on their comforts.
Who can explain
why these people
never wonder
what they did wrong?
Amazon Author Page
The Dog Says Sit
Words mask meaning
which rises in silence
comes clear
with the attention,
the patience
of a dog.
We know this
but refuse to trade our talk
for wisdom.
Those who stop to still themselves
know how dogs know:
see the others’ eyes shift
flutter like a bird taking flight
how the mouth tightens
the shoulders rise.
Though we sit close to each other
we hear
from a distance.
Tender Work
Work with what you are
If you are a fawn
at dusk
you will
stand still as wood
in a field of tall green grass
at the edge of a forest
your dark eyes wide open
watching sparrows
flit and fly home
through the twilight.
If you are a fawn
your soft brown ears
upright will catch sounds
of wind through the pines.
If you are a field mouse
you will
scurry, slipping between
wildflowers
fawn hooves.
If you are a human
you will
see the fawn, the pines, the wildflowers
feel you breath as wind,
how your heart beats as
bird mouse, fawn
then and only then
your tender work
is done.
Tinney Creek
Tinney Creek, St. Petersburg, Florida
Tinney Creek runs past
under
and despite
the TJ Max
CVS, Target.
It travels back and forth
from Tampa Bay
rises and falls daily with the tide
feeds Egrets, families of Muscovy ducks and Mallards
who seek tiny prawns, mud crabs, bugs.
Feathery Java fern
rounded Moneywort
grow in it’s rich mud,
abundant
as if this was still The Garden.
Between snaking highways,
Dollar Stores
gas stations
condo buildings
Taco Bells
the creeks and their residents
carry on
as if this was still The Garden.
Down the busy street a ways
atop a pole advertising Beer and Low-Cost Cigarettes,
an osprey has built a roomy nest,
designed in the contemporary open sky plan.
A lone Roseate Spoonbill sometimes visits Tinney Creek
always in company with her Egret.
I watch as
Spoonbill lifts it’s comical Dr. Seuss face
twitches its white and rosy feathers
lowers its wide paddle-like beak into brackish water
sweep, sweep
side to side
poke, poke.
The ducks, Ibis, Egret, crows and I claim
this creek and the remaining
Royal Palms, oak trees, iridescent sunsets
as ours.
“I used to see many Roseate Spoonbills here once,”
a neighbor tells me.
My heart aches
as regularly
as it beats
these days
at these all too familiar words:
There were many here
once.
At night, arriving home,
my headlights sweep over the banks of the creek
lighting up a line of ducks, like fat-buddhas
heads curled into their downy breasts
asleep despite ambulance sirens,
the roar of traffic.
At dawn they will wake
waddle like drunks
raise their chicks,
the Osprey will hunt,
the Spoonbill and Egret will visit
I will marvel at how they float and splash
and the creek
feeds us all
as if this is still the Garden.
A Music Video Poem
Great White Heron Selfie
Great White Heron Selfie, original photo by Carol Kay, %22selfie22 by Anda Peterson
To capture
a Great White Heron
in Florida
on a log
in the Hillsborough River
but really
in a frame
on your wall
take a picture
of a picture
of a heron
a selfie
of hands
capturing
all
the beauty
they can hold.
“You Complain Too Much”
From Walks with Yogi “You Complain Too Much…”
Somehow, in feeling our own pain and sorrow, our own ocean of tears, we come to know that ours is a shared pain and that the mystery and beauty and pain of life cannot be separated. This universal pain, too , is part of our connection with one another, and in the face of it we cannot withhold our love any longer.
–Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart
I write imperfectly and may find later that I disagree with myself…but then, if, we say the metaphor for enlightenment is Paris, I’m still in Peoria. On a bicycle. Pedaling to the Eiffel Tower will take a while, but I’m on my way…
The other day my brother said that, although he liked reading most of my blogs, he enjoyed the more light-hearted ones more, that others can seem like “complaining.” He said the ones that describe the good results of my efforts are more helpful than to read about my past and present struggles. I know there are other readers who would agree with him and have the same critique of my blogs—be more positive, they say, don’t complain too much.
So, I’m going to complain about that…
My intention isn’t to write my blog, my book or my poetry only for my own benefit–though certainly it has helped me– but also for those who are ashamed of their “flaws” and afraid they will be rejected if they reveal them.
Some people say I am brave to reveal my dark side, the character defects, the struggles. I ask why should that take courage? How sad that we must be brave to share about our vulnerabilities, our imperfections. One of the reasons people heal in groups like AA is because they are finally safe to admit they hurt, that they have hurt others, that they are confused, that they feel lost and out of control, and that the demon of craving and attachment has turned them into what Buddhists call, “hungry ghosts.” The miracle is that when addicts and enablers finally face and admit those “shameful” things, their shame lessens and even evaporates.
My poor, sick alcoholic parents did not like it when the kids complained because our unhappiness fueled their guilt, which in turn increased their drinking. In Al Anon I learned that they did the best they could considering how ill-equipped for parenting they were.
The loudly unspoken rules my siblings and I understood were: “Kids are not allowed to complain. It upsets the adults. If you upset us, it will make us drink.” My brother and sister rarely complained. They were good kids. I was not good. I was unhappy; and children were not allowed to be unhappy. There was hell to pay when I complained, yet I never wised up. I couldn’t ignore or deny my parents’ fiery, violent rages.
I couldn’t hide that I was upset when I found my father holding back my mother’s knife-wielding hand. I was unhappy about being thrown down the stairs because I had been crying too much. I showed alarm when I awoke in the middle of the night to hear plates being thrown onto the kitchen floor, against the walls.
Kids in alcoholic families are supposed to take care of everyone else, do the bidding of others. The Supreme Rule in such families: Do whatever it takes to keep the alcoholic “happy” because if the addict is unhappy, everybody pays. I broke the rule. I was the complainer, the problem, the reason mother had migraine sand father was passed out in the basement.
In adulthood, I learned I needed help and that before I could leave the past behind, I needed to question the old rules. I turned to AlAnon and Buddhism—-which turn out to be the same truths put into different language.
A definition of Buddhist mindfulness is non-judgmental seeing. Seeing things as they are, not as we think they should or shouldn’t be. AlAnon taught me to see how a thick blanket of shame and fear covered life in an alcoholic family. I write to lift the blanket, shake it out, let light and air in. I write because I don’t think I am the only one-–even at my advanced age–-who has removed the blanket and who doesn’t want to go to sleep under it again. Dare I say this is a type of wokeness. I dare say so.
I write about my demons because if I face, name, investigate and learn to love them, they will no longer clamor for my attention, demand my self-loathing and cause me to blame others. I don’t think that is complaining too much.
Impermanence
A number of years ago Yogi, my Sharpie-mix, died of an incurable kidney disease, then another dog I adopted died of another incurable disease a year later. Most recently, a college died from an aggressive brain tumor. I too am of the age when I am closer to the end of my life than I’ve ever been. Aging requires acceptance, over and over. So does youth, but it’s easier and even applauded to resist acceptance in youth. That is also why being young is difficult.
Now what? The sand is shifting beneath my feet. What some refer to as “ego”—-my conditioned self—- wants to suffer and cling to stories of regret and loss. My ego is the holder of memories. Its memories are vivid. It constructed its identity from messages heard in childhood and sometimes asserts itself in my adulthood. This ego/identity needs people, places, and things as it wants them, or it suffers. Since life is seldom as I want it to be, my ego has had plenty of opportunities to suffer.
I was reading the section in my book (Walks with Yogi)that talked about the time Yogi was diagnosed several years ago. Here is what I wrote:
Yogi may have six months or perhaps several more years to live, but he is dying. I laid down on the bed next to Yogi and listened to a recording of Ram Dass who, with much physical and mental effort, was being interviewed about how he was coping after his stroke. I listened, my hand on Yogi’s warm, smooth belly. Ram Das told the interviewer that his body had a stroke but who he really is did not.
Yogi woke me twice in the middle of the night. He has to pee often now. I stumble down the three flights of stairs and onto the street with him again. This is now. This requires acceptance, not resistance. Because it is now reality. What of it? This is sand shifting as it always does.
Since my ego lives in the past and future only, when I enter the present moment I finally feel the feelings ego wants to avoid—sorrow, love, compassion. I see what is in front of me, not behind me or in some future. I see Yogi’s patient acceptance of things as they are. I practice emulating his fully present, fully alive example. Yesterday I invited friends, those whom I had told about Yogi illness, to have a picnic dinner with me at the beach. Ego would prefer to spend more time suffering, but the real me chose to live fully, besides, dogs sense and respond to depression and worry. My depression and worry should not be Yogi’s problem.
The sky was overcast and we took shelter behind a large rock resting our backs against its comforting heft. We toasted Yogi. The sun came out for a while before it set and we watched with pleasure. Two dolphins rose and dropped behind the waves in the distance. I became so filled with the beauty of the present moment with the power of being accepting of impermanence that I felt compelled to run down the beach. I know that is what Yogi would have done.
Buddha said: Find out for Yourself
Doubt Is a servant, essential as lamp light in the dark room. It is the stop sign we ignore at our peril as, driven by certainty, we crash. Still, bruised and battered, we mistrust doubt. Doubt is an explorer, a guide to the opened door leading to ocean, meadow, vast, cloudless sky.
Like a River, Like a Wolf
We must return wild, guided by wind and moon to find our way. The journey made simple When we find the way out of the wilderness of cities. Then Into the forest Along the shore Up the mountain Through the meadow We travel. Our sight, then, like a wolf’s, Made clear by Scent and touch More than eyes alone . Our body, like a river Bend and stretch Run fast or slow Over rocks, below branches. Going home.
In Dog Years
We watch as,
with age,
dog muzzles turn white,
eyes cloud with cataracts
(but do not lose their patient glow).
fatty lumps appear under their skin
(as a matter of course, not disease).
Because dogs do not get botox
and are not bitter that
their hips are arthritic,
their once shiny hair
has turned dull and dry,
their running days over,
Because their acceptance
Put into words
“Now this…now that…”
softens time,
calms the heart,
I, wrinkled and graying,
am inspired.
To Begin Anew: Tender Work
TABLE OF CONTENTS
#1 Since You Are Me
After Listening to Tiokasin Ghosthorse…4
Long Gone Chicago, For Fred Hampton…5 (First appeared in The Rookery, 2021
For Greta…7
For Jacob… 8
The Courage We Need…9
Who Will Explain?…10 (First appeared in NYC Festival of Human Right Art Journal, 2019)
Bullied, a History…11
Resurrection….12 (First appeared in Snapdragon Journal of Health, 2019)
Definitions….13
Solitude….15
#2. We Drink Moonlight
Buddha’s Rhetoric…17
Picasso and Einstein Walk into a Bar…18
Circumnavigation…19 (First appeared in Sky Island Journal, 2018)
Tea Ceremony…21
The Dream of Driving….22 (First appeared in Spirit First, 2020 winner of second place prize)
Why We Go to The Beach….23
Surrender…. 24
Composition…25
Unfold Yourself…26
#3 To Begin Anew is All She Knows
Chihuly Glass #1….28
Chihuly Glass #2….29
Boyd Hill….30
Pushaw Lake…32
Lagoon.…33
#4 Tender Work
Motherhood…39
Tinney Creek #1… 35 (First appeared in Plum Tavern Journal, 2019)
Tinney Creek # 2….36
Weedon Island #1 Morning…40
Weedon Island #2 Shelter…41
What the Dog Says…42
A Field in Maine…..44
Nest…45 (First appeared in Salt Creek Journal, 2018)
Ibis and Dragonfly..48
Advice from a Live Oak…49 (First appeared in Odet, 2020)
The Great Extinction…51
Qarrtsiluni….52
I Am….53
Constellation…54
GPS Dirge…55
1.
Since You are Me
After Listening to Tiokasin Ghosthorse
Name yourself the Lakota way
see how
streams reflecting sunlight
run in your veins,
stars shine
on your brow.
Go to the forest the Lakota way.
hear roots
whisper wordless
under the the soft-handed canopy
holding you
as you sleep.
Know this boulder the Lakota way
and you will understand
something solid
Is not
but glows and glitters
with light
like your bones
like boulders,
that by constant motion joined,
speak your name.
Long Gone Chicago
for my Childhood Schoolmate Fred Hampton
Hometown music
sets the groove
the sway
joy drum
saxophone shout
in this Florida coffee shop
where I sit writing.
Seventies Chicago rhythm and blues play today
as long ago
I took the elevated train past projects in a gray line
mountainous
over the expressway
the “El” clatters,
shakes the tenement windows,
screeches to a stop.
From the eleventh floor, a five-year-old watches,
this rushing world,
wonder-eyed, wish-filled
as the refrain
“Stand by me…”
floats out from his window
this summer day
of Chicago-heat-cemented
hot air blown about by a single fan,
“Darling, darling, stand
stand by me…”
the roar of the train deafens
deafens love songs.
I feel
faith in his heart,
not mine, but
unshakeable.
He watches
his brother waiting
sitting on the stoop
at noon
job denied
one more time.
On a Monday in my car, Marvin Gaye sings
“Makes me wanna holler,
throw up both my hands…”
the news interrupts
Fred
age 21
shot
dead
shot dead
while sound asleep.
I feel faith between the notes,
not mine, but
from a distance,
as I drive
to the South Side weeping
for my job at the welfare,
warfare office.
For Greta
But you, too young to say
impossible,
You make it possible again and again…
~~lyrics from the song Rise Up by Roy Zimmerman, after the Parkland shootings
Only the old believe in death
fooled by their changing bodies,
unchanging minds
stiffened
to hold back time.
Looking back,
back
scrolling
through memories
eyes lose sight
of what is ahead.
I am old now
but live
with wonder at my place in:
the purple center of red tulips,
the sacred geometry of nautilus shells,
all Fibonacci forms,
endless as then am I
on the full rounding
of the moving earth
rolling and
returning
rolling
and returning.
I stand
aged
on the edge
of uncertainty,
discovery,
arms open
mind open
to every possibility.
For Jacob
I am lying in a hospital bed.
Shot seven times in my back.
My children watched.
I am paralyzed now
but the people in red hats
have been taught,
to blame me
now for my shattered back.
On the same streets, they protest.
two lie dead
shot by a boy
who fears he’s not a man
and killing makes him so.
The long rifle his power, at last.
How long has this been going on?
The Vikings stole people,
as slave holders do,
for hundreds of years.
The point being,
fellow humans,
our cruelty
is nothing new
this heredity of hate
grows a stunted family tree
all thorns and brittle branches.
So what do you make of this?
How do we continue
to buy groceries
swim in the pool
drink coffee on the patio
and pretend you are not me?
Pretend again
Imagine
the justice you would seek
rage that would burn
revenge you could take
yet won’t
somehow
because you are a man.
Imagine the love you deserve
since you are me.
What kind of courage do we need?…We must accept reality in all its immensity…the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to meet the strangest, most awesome and most inexplicable of phenomena.~~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
The Courage We Need
Is to stand
alone
on the dance floor.
The courage we need is
to stay steady
see clearly
through lies
thick as blankets
as the sleepers
pretend wakefulness.
The courage we need is
to refuse
the safety
of the trance.
The courage we need is
to love with a broken heart,
shed fears like leaves
to bend, bow
and continue.
Who Will Explain?
The brown-eyed children
in the cages
huddle under silver blankets
that sparkle like Christmas tinsel.
The children sleep on the cold cement floor
do not understand
the wire cages,
their loneliness
after the long, hot walk
through the desert.
Do they wonder,
as children do,
what they did wrong?
Who will explain
to them
this land
where people sleep
on silk sheets
stride, careless, across marble floors
after cool rides
in shiny new trucks
through the desert,
drunk on their comforts.
Who can explain
why these people
never wonder
what they did wrong?
First appeared in the Festival of Human Right Art Journal, NYC, 2019
Bullied: A History
She held the dog in her lap,
soft-eyed, golden pit bull-spaniel mix.
Of course, you know dogs,
so you understand
she was held also.
He looked at them
incredulous
“This dog has never known cruelty,” he said,
recalling how cruelty
had rocked his crib.
She understands,
recalls the fear,
the screams.
He and she,
strangers to safety,
uncertain of its terrain,
familiar only with threat,
surprised to come upon
this sacrosanct moment.
Later
He returned as bully.
She returned as victim.
Resurrection
Nobody was ever drunk on Easter
So it was one holiday
not dread.
My parents, instead of hiding their drinking in the garage
took us to the woods
to collect moss
as the bed
for Easter eggs
we later would wrap in leaves,
coffee grounds, strips of colored cloth,
bound in burlap, tied with string,
boiled, then unwrapped,
earth-colored spheres
like stones, like brown-gray shades of bark,
streaks of orange, blue, red
like the sun over
the green-blue river,
a cardinal’s feather.
ln the woods,
we lifted damp moss
with care
soft, muddy
caked with moldy
dead leaves
that mulch life,
carry a fertile scent
of sweet loam
the promise,
of a resurrection
understood
by my drinking, dying parents
resurrection guaranteed
by the fallen tree
the detritus of fur from creatures
all turning, sinking into soil
sprouting a cacophony of mushrooms
then tender violets,
at last,
a bud on a branch. (First appeared in Snapdragon Health Journal, 2020)
Definitions:
Aeon (symbol all-encompassing insight)
The Greeks have four words for love:
1. storge,
family,
that mirrors for us
if we are lucky,
2. philautra,
self-acceptance
So with this in our hearts,
clear-eyed, warm-hearted
we discover
3. philea,
friendship
a love that comforts like good soup.
4. The deeper nourishment
of course, is found in
agape,
The beloved community.
Those of us,
planted in rocky soil
growth stunted, frozen
reach for fire,
thinking it is the sun.
Our word for love is
need
the name for our illusions
a fog that hides the shoreline.
We navigate by blinding lies
instead of stars.
Tossed about, dizzied, bruised
by storms we call passion,
nearly drowned.
We think we will be saved
by grasping,
clinging
tighter still
to the punctured.hull.
Aeon knows love through
Body, Spirit and Soul
appears as the Star Goddess
her companion,
Hadith, a winged ball of fire,
omniscience,
their child is Horus,
clear insight.
Aeon rises above the waves,
to tell us
it is almost too late for
seasick sailors, lost and weary,
appears as an eagle
cries out
philea,
agape
philea,
agape
agape
…love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance…Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything. ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Solitude
Some say
aloneness
and its quietude
is a nightmare of isolation,
the very opposite of love.
Some hide under crowd-cover
run from themselves
submerge in another.
Yet, solitude might be cherished
even more than a lover.
What else nourishes your poems
like rain on roses,
grows your songs, flows your art?
What else
returns you to yourself,
honors your silence,
makes space for your tears,
nests you in its bosom?
What else
leaves room for your questions
is the dawn for your answers
reminds you of the warp and weave
connecting the universe?
What invites you to meditation,
guides you to your spirit,
leads you to prayer?
2.
We Drink Moonlight
Buddha’s Rhetoric
words
disappear
as exhaled breath
and yet
become flesh
concrete
hardwoods
steel.
Also, giraffes
and beer bottles
bombs
guns
Mozart
wind chimes
and muddy boots.
words
begun as snapping synapses
birthed behind the eyes
released
sounds spinning into the world
naked
until
armored with our meanings
carried across mountains
they start wars.
built as beliefs by our ancestors
are substantial
as smoke.
Picasso, Einstein and Buddha Walk into a Bar…
Picasso takes a swig of whiskey and proclaims
“There is blue in the horse!”
Einstein agrees.
Buddha nods.
Yes, blue is in the horse.
If you look beyond muscle and haunch,
Buddha says,
sipping his tea,
you will see
atoms that sparkle and shine.
Einstein smiles
and drinks his beer.
Picasso says,
they want me to draw the mouth on the face
they say, where it belongs.
They don’t want the eyes on the forehead,
tell me to look at statues
to understand the body.
“As if we aren’t particles,” Picasso says
“As if our cells are static,” Einstein sighs.
“As if we are solid,” Buddha adds.
At this their laughter grows uproarious.
The customers look askance, shake their heads, concerned.
They tell each other those three sound crazy,
and look,
one of them is wearing a sheet and no shoes!
The other hasn’t combed his hair for days!
The three are thrown out of the bar
onto the street
so arm-in-arm
they stroll into the night
sparkling.
Circumnavigation
Really there is no edge
from which to fall.
We are like ancient sailors
still
trembling at the horizon.
Everything is a circle
your eye, the earth.
The path is not straight
as you come round
and return
as we do
as we all do
to where we started
which may look like
A mandala
constructed
of your recollections
in hues of every color
collected
in circular order
the stories
we spent our lives
repeating
looking for
the conclusion
but finding instead
A Sufi dancing in a circle of light
round of white
skirt
Whirling
Spinning
Precisely
Like a planet
and the sun
illuminated circumferences
all circadian rings of light
that cross over
over
and around
the globe.
like the
deep round sound of the
drum, or the
singing bowl struck awake
its overtone
resonating
resounding
like the echo
floating in a canyon
gliding up and down
the rocky basin
returning to its origin.
Tell me then
what you fear.
Tell me,
where is the beginning
of this moment
or the end
of the ocean?
(First appeared in Sky Island Journal, 2018)
Tea Ceremony
Every day is a good day when thoughts do not remain.
~~Zen saying
Clouds,
like memories,
are weightless
yet gathered,
Grow heavy over the light
of even a bright full moon.
Clouds,
Like the fog of old fears
tumble and build
one upon the other,
dark, thick.
Clouds,
like steam
that rises from Thich Nhat Hanh’s teacup
float out the window,
to return as rainthat quench the thirst of tea leaves.
Thay teaches this:clouds appear in teacups,we drink moonlight,
and can see clearly
through fog.
The Dream of Driving
Inhaling I notice
thoughts
tailgate each other in my mind
relentlessly.
A car backfires
a mindfulness bell of sorts
to remind me
I can take an exit
pull out of traffic
exhale
but thoughts roar to life again
overtake me like gangsters in Cadillacswho hold me hostage
push me into yesterday
drag me into tomorrow
convince me
they are realuntil a deep breath,
like the foot on the pedal,
guides me to the rest stop
where I watch
just watch
thoughts like cars
pass before my eyes
and I know again
how these flickering moments
of quick bright peaceare real
more real
than the dream of driving.
(First appeared in Spirit First, winner of second place 2020)
Why We Go to the Beach
With plans laid out like railroad tracks,
linear as certainty, as cynicism,
rusted by habitual distrust,
I navigate by thought alone,
obdurate with my belief
in diaphanous assumptions.
Then, though seldom,
I stop
go to the beach, let’s say,
nowhere significant, you know,
not the important places
with the important people.
at water’s edge,
feet caressed by wavelets startle me into my body,
mind quieted,
senses alert
resistance washed away by
waves rising,
Then falling
Gentle as autumn leaves.
Surprised,
I float
buoyed,
like the minnows darting past.
Sharing their trust,
I am carried
To uncertainty,
A type of sanity,
to poetry.
Surrender
is like
grinding out the last cigarette under your boot heel
this time for good
this time for good.
Leaving the key on the table.
Shutting the door
that door.
Quietly
Tightly.
Surrender is a fist opening
the grip loosening
from the conviction
of how it should have been.
Tear-washed eyes
are clear now
mindful
of the wider horizon.
An angel or a buddha
put its arm around your shoulders
and you felt held
and you are
sure
it was it was
real.
Composition
It begins with
a rhythm
a beat,
a pulse
rises and falls
after the downbeat
of thunder
when rain sounds
like fingers snapping
foot tapping
on the roof
until the swell of a deluge
builds to a crescendo
and ends
with the slow brushstroke of a snare drum.
The musician searches for a cadence
and the tempo
set by water.
Unfold Yourself
The mind is a small town
where the news is old
and the air stale
with endlessly certainty.
It’s where you live
safe
from possibilities
undisturbed
by questions
constricted
by your memories.
In this narrow, airless place
if you part a dusty curtain,
lift the window,
vistas open
where solutions,
like surprises like wildflowers
spring up in spaciousness.
Breathe.
Stretch.
Step out the door
Unfold yourself
like a picnic blanket on the grass.
3
To Begin Anew is all She Knows
Chihuly Glass #1
A Chihully glass shell is formed,
as are we all,
from a sacred geometry
etched precisely
by water and fire.
These secret equations
might be understood
by calculating eons
blazing suns,
salt water tossed rocks
ground to sand
turned solid and translucent
curled and bent
to correct angles
surfaces divided
into harmonious parts
fragile as glass
smooth as bone
or a seashell
or your spine.
Chihuly Glass #2
This is the mystery
of energy
enough to ignite
colored shards of glass
into a fountain
of blue and red
yellow and orange
into a fused stillness.
The same mystery
waits
in the candle wick,
the match
the dry kindling.
Against this cosmic background the lifespan of a particular plant or animal appears, not as drama complete in itself, but only as a brief interlude in a panorama of endless change.
~~Rachael Carson
Boyd Hill Nature Perserve, St. Petersburg, Florida
This land feasts on fire and flood
where lightening strikes
scrub pines flare like torches.
Crackling pine needles
play a fiery staccato.
Snakes, squirrels, mice
(who’ve learned from their elders)
burrow in tunnels
built by gopher tortoise.
The truce between predator and prey will hold
below the conflagration
as mouse and snake listen together
to the racing current of flames overhead.
They wait for the certain drenching deluge
to cool the charred tree trunks.
Grasses turned to ash
(a rich burnt compost)
will nourish sandy soil
needle thin stalks will push up through dank mud
towards the steamy sun.
Soon thickly green
vines wind around vines.
Branches cross one another, reach
in every direction.
After fire and rain
Mockingbirds, thrush, kingfishers, hawks
call out emphatic declarations
while under darkened canopies of oaks
frogs and turtles sleep.
Upon the humid air floats
A symphony of scents
honeysuckle, magnolia, fiddlewood,
rise in sweet crescendos
In the thorny brush
a rustling
as mouse jumps
from the grasp of snake
white clouds, backlit by the sun
grow into mountains
portend the next fire
the next flood
and gopher tortoise casts a wary, wise eye skyward.
Pushaw Lake, Maine
It is late August.
The bee flutters about a dandelion
gains its footing and does its work.
A man stands steady in a boat fishing
on the quiet lake.
The hammock, under two maples,
sways in the breeze.
I write these pictures
to capture the last days of summer.
This is a fool’s errand of course
Like trying to anchor the clouds.
But I persist
because I am in love with this moment
like a monk bent over his sand mandala
adding pinpricks of of color in a corner of the whole.
He practices impermanence
the one lasting certainty.
The long-lived log
the swing of the ax
solidity split.
So I set these images
one word at a time
bent over the page
with reverence for:
The swimmer in the lake
who does a slow crawl through the evergreen water
the tall pines above her watching.
The black ant who climbs over the boulder.
A loon who rises with a haunting call
and geese
who talk a blue streak in passing.
For now, just now
I walk under the light of the moon
down the path to the fire pit
a full moon
will soon empty itself
become a sliver, a crescent
new.
Lagoon, Martha’s Vineyard
Here on an empty stretch of saltwater lagoon this gray morning
my bare feet scoured by gold-brown sandI walk mindful of the footprints of dogs and sharp shells, rocks, mud.
I come to meditate
which is simply just to stop
to practice seeing.
Damp translucent and neon-green strips of seaweed
stretch along the shore line.The lagoon lies still
under the smoky-pale sky
its calm speaks of a welcome respite from visitors
as if its heartbeat is steady againso I feel an intruderI will be quiet, walk slowlytake a seat on a weathered green bench.
It is high tidea few days after a new moon(said to inspire new beginnings).
A swan appears on the silver water,looks my way.The life-long mate nowhere to be seen.
I whisper an invitation.I hope she will come to meteach me about her solitudebut, no, she is hereto be graceful and careful,
to glide serenely alone .
She bends her long neck like a ballerina
darts her beak into the water to catch a minnow.
She will navigate this lagoonfollowing the movement of the tides
the moon and starlight.
To begin anew
is all she knows.
Tinney Creek #1
Tinney Creek runs past
under
and despite
the TJ Max
CVS, Target .
I live next to Tinny Creek,
across from a mall
along with the ducks, egrets, and crows
and the occasional hawk.
Tinney Creek
travels back and forth
from Tampa Bay
rises and falls with the tide
feeds Egrets, a families of Muscovy ducks and Mallards
seeking tiny prawns, mud crabs, bugs.
In the muddy bank grow
feathery Java fern
rounded Moneywort
verdant, abundant
as if this was still The Garden.
despite
the insults of a styrofoam cup,
a plastic bag.
Here between snaking highways,
Dollar Stores
gas stations
condo buildings
Taco Bells
hawk has built a nest atop a pole
advertising Beer and Low-Cost Cigarettes.
The ducks, Ibis, Egret, crows and I
claim the creek as haven.
(First appeared in Plum Tavern Journal, 2019)
Tinney Creek #2
Low tide at Tinney Creek brings
a rare pink-and-white-feathered surprise.
The Roseate Spoonbill
sweeps its ladle-like beak
through the shallow water
ignoring the styrofoam cup floating past
Urban detritus
The Spoonbill lifts it’s Dr. Seuss face
to me, then
twitching its white and rosey feathers
lowers its wide baseball-hat- bill into the water
sweep, sweep
side to side
poke, poke
with open paddle mouth
for shrimps and insects.
The Spoonbill is a “gregarious bird” according to the website
“who spends time with other large wading birds,”
It arrived with an egret
now at its side,
as the usual resident
Muscovy ducks
rest like plump buddhas on the grass.
“I used to see many Roseate Spoonbills here once,”
a neighbor says.
My heart aches
as regularly
as it beats
these days
at the all too familiar words.
There were many
once.
And yet
The Roseate Spoonbill came
to Tinney Creek.
And at night, arriving home,
my headlights sweep over the creek
lighting up a sweet stretch of sleeping ducks
peaceful despite ambulance sirens
the roar of car engines.
At dawn they will wake
to waddle like drunks
and raise their chicks
though hawk will hunt them.
The creek still alive and fertile
feeds them all
weathers the encroachments
of condos and commerce
And so
My heart resumes its song.
4.
Tender Work
Motherhood
A tree birthed me.
I climbed into its arms
Protected from
Heat and harm.
Hidden by leafy tendrils
Birds and I sheltered
While she nourished earth
Swept the air clean.
With age
The skin on my limbs
Resembles tree bark
Years etched,
Storms weathered.
I recall childhood
Her green canopy.
In autumn
Her fiery, falling leaves
My joy.
Weedon Island #1 Morning
Here
in the shade, beneath a tin roof
on Weedon Island
at a green wooden picnic table
we sit and write towards sanity,
feeling the soft feathers of a breeze.
Above, the blue sky is cloudless this morning.
Away from all things hectic,
thoughts quieted,
we are held by a hammock of silence
but for rhythmic bird call
Woot woot, pause, woot woot, pause.
Among the live oaks
Palmettos
Scrub pines
undergrowth thick and untamed
fertile mulch
fine housing for turtle, snake and mouse,
Here
Is reality:
Tin roof
bird
tree
sky
silence.
Weedon Island #2 Shelter
My sandals slap
Along the wood path,
damp from last night’s rain.
The peaked tin roof
that covers the picnic tables
must have drummed loudly last night.
Snake and tortoise might have woken by
the stormy orchestra
its kettledrum percussion of thunder
cooling into the notes like a timpani.
Do the creatures fear the storms
as do we
sheltered
by cash, cars, and houses?
But fear knows it is not welcome
where there is peace,
not cash, car, house.
What the Dog Says
Words,
as a dog I hear many
and have learned
people use words
like leashes
like masks
like shields
and sometimes clubs.
I have no words, but
all meanings are clear for me.
His tension smells like hot tar.
Her laugh sounds like a fire alarm.
It is because I watch
silently
that I see
like infants and others
who still feel the earth as their bodies.
Only people grown away from creation
ignore senses
remain unaware
of each other.
With words they name things
what they are not
(words are best for lying).
They do not recognize
the scent of fear in themselves or another.
I know
fear smells like car exhaust.
I know
love smells like sweet sweat.
Fear and love.
What else is there to know?
I need no further schooling.
I am aware
how before he speaks,
his shoulders rise and stiffen
her eyes dart for a place to land.
I understand,
lower my head to the floor and sigh.
They sit across from each other
at what they call a table.
I know it is the ocean dividing them.
At last I bark,
beseeching them
explaining
how painful,
how lasting, is the wound
from the powerful bite of words.
A Field in Maine
Work with what you are.
If you are a fawn
at dusk
you will stand still as wood
in a field of tall green grass
at the edge of a forest
your dark eyes wide open
watching sparrows flit and fly home
through lavender twilight.
If you are a fawn,
your soft brown ears upright will catch sounds
of wind through the pines,
like brooms sweeping the sky.
If you are a field mouse
you will scurry, slipping between
a crowd of periwinkle-blue lupines
and fawn hooves.
If you are a human
you will see
fawn, pines, wildflowers, mouse
know your breath as wind through the pines,
and your heart as it
beats in fawn and mouse,
then and only then
your tender work
is done.
Nest
To practice seeing, I choose an empty nest
fallen to the sidewalk
built into a Tillandsia,
the “air plant” that hangs from the branches of trees
round, bowl-like
A perfect scaffolding.
The plants tentacles intertwine
Round and round each other
The cardinal needs only scoop out the center.
For this, dear architect, did you use your clawing feet?
Your beak?
Both?
The cleverness of your construction should not surprise me
but I am human.
I have so many questions.
The answers are mapped in the mind
of a small, smooth feathered head which
pictured the design
remembered
shapes, sizes, textures
arranged each element
composed it all
into a unified utility.
How long, how difficult was the construction?
Thin, sliver twigs needed to be bent,
Bits of grape vine collected
Then inserted into the Tillandsia,
Threaded through the curls of grape vines
The stitching secures dry, flaky particles of Live Oak seedpods.
This builder knows how to balance beauty with practicality.
I attempt
to practice the same day by day.
What was next indicated in your plans?
Perhaps, you decided
To lift dry, gray Spanish moss
Lacy string by lacy string
carried in your beak, flitting back and forth
on labored wings
Nest to branch
branch to nest
you knew that
moss matted down, then mixed with dirt
makes a sturdy stucco
Was this an ancient knowledge inherited from
Your dinosaur DNA?
To the stucco, lodged as if glued is
A one-by-one inch square of plastic netting from a bag of fruit.
Architect, this raises more questions.
How was the perfect size of plastic netting located, then chosen?
Was this serendipity?
Or was it a memory of a bright white, crisscrossed thing you spied from the air?
This plastic web has little function.
Did it thrill or amuse you?
Who can say it didn’t?
And why did you place this swatch of netting
On only one side of your nest?
Was this a statement?
A signature?
Who can say it wasn’t.?
Or was it for fun?
Do you like fun like I like fun?
Who can say you don’t?
Woven between the Spanish moss, Tillandsia fibers and the fragile twigs
are three strips of cotton from an old cloth bandage.
Was this only for comfort?
Do you like the softness against your face?
Like I like softness?
Who can say you don’t?
Six strips of silver tinsel from an old Christmas tree
are inserted at the top of the nest.
Are you making a case for beauty?
Is this a sign of aesthetics in a life otherwise dominated by survival?
Like mine?
Who can say it isn’t?
The tinsel is fragile, not material for construction
but sparkles,
sparkles!
in the sun.
Do you and I both delight in things that shine?
Who dares to say you don’t?
Like any clever architect
You balance beauty with practicality.
I attempt the same
day by day.
I never knew all this about you
Your jokes, your artistry
Until you stopped my mind one day
and opened my eyes
when I found your home.
(First appeared in Salt Creek Journal, 2017)
Ibis and Dragonfly
My wings
span my world
known by me
as the places
where dragonflies
dive in and out
of lily pads
and tall grasses,
statling turtles
from their sunny sleep.
The dragonfly and I
turn with the earth.
We sense each transformation
dawn to dusk
hot to cold
caterpillar to butterfly.
Life and death
dragonfly and I, know
is contraction and expansion,
the latent liberty
in our winged bodies.
The dragonfly, they say,
is a totem creature
of transformation
as am I.
Look!
how my wide opaque white wing
changes to mauve in the dimming light of dusk.
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way…As a man is, so he sees. ~~William Blake
Advice From a Live Oak in Florida to the Owner of the Mercedes Floating Down the Street in Miami
Listenyou there...step back from the edge of the precipice you’ve come uponwith no warningin your mind.Here now, at your winter home in Florida,
you stand on the crumbling asphalt
watch your Mercedes float by as if it was your yacht.Nearby, as if in a dream, you hear someone saying words like
aquifer, global warming, unsustainableBut you don’t understand any language not spoken in banks.
You shout your mantraFix it! Fix it!You shiver in the heat under the roof you constructed over the planet.
ListenThis is how you got here:You looked at me through blinders and called me a tree. Then you named me:Live Oak.I became a fact you could dismiss or use as it suitedWhen you cut me and my sap ranyou did not recall the stickiness of your own blood.
So, I knew that our reunion would have to wait
until we had no choice. Like now.
Before you were too busy.
You dug mines, drained swamps,
smothered the soil with cement
slashed the forests and fieldsforced water where it did not want to flow.
Now you are surprised.You order the seawalls to be rebuilt higher
again and again,yet the waves roar at them and they succumb
over and over.For comfort, you grab at your pockets for your rosary of coins.
On the news you seeCoyotes leap over the walls of your mansion
Panthers roam the yardBlack bears rummage through your trash
swim at their leisure in your Olympic-sized pools.
ou have homes hidden behind steel gates
but the animals know these woods and marshes
they have mapped the paths in their veinsfeel the contours of the land in their heartssee through the darkand know exactly what needs knowing upon the air.
You reach into your vault of millions for your talisman of dollars
and find a time bomb lodged in one corner.
When this bomb is triggered by the last floods and the final fires
even you
will become brethren to the lowest insect, the stalk of grass.
For the first time, you hear the alarms.Your senses open like a deer listening for the hunter’s next step.
Listen, here was your next mistakeYou mowed when it was time to sow.
Demolished what it was time to save.
You understood how to ravage but not how to prune.
Now is the time to listen.
Listen
to what speaks quietlyin both of us:
Live… live… live...
The Great Extinction
Even if you aren’t a believer
your feet have faith
in the earth
your lungs are believers
in the air
your thirst trusts
in water.
We are held,
nourished
with no effort of our own.
What other love gives so freely?
This is holiness
crucified
by those who once again
know not
what they do.
qarrtsiluni
~~Inuit for “sitting together in the dark”
While the blue northern ice
melts into the sea
We sit in the dark together alongside Polar bear.
on the tundra’s newly blackened soil.
The Inuit have seventy-four words for sea ice.
We name what we see
to navigate
and so
we are collecting new words
for tears
and ignorance.
We gather
in the dark
seeking new ways
to set the course over these rising waters.
The word we cannot lose
is most treasured,
we must repeat to each other
as warning, as warming
together
as we gather in the dark
together
Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
― Walt Whitman
I Am
My hair is marsh grass
arms tree limbs
stretching, muscular in youth
lowering, frail in old age.
My heartbeat is a frog’s
eyes, a bird’s
lungs, a fish’s
skin, a seal’s in youth
rough wood bark in old age.
My veins line a leaf
blood, a river inside the leaf
breath, is a breeze, a gale
the soles of my feet, a bear’s.
My bones are rocks, elongated minerals, calcifications.
They will be the heaviness of my ashes
you will feel in your palm
as you scatter me
to seed new life.
GPS Dirge
We have forgotten
what butterfly and bird,
dolphin and sea turtle know.
The young bird and butterfly imprint
on the sun and stars,
oriented to the direction,
pulled by an electromagnetic embrace,
certain of their journey home.
Above us bird and and butterfly
understand the messages carried by the wind,
comprehend the news of temperature on their wings,
and how the scent of of forest, fields and mountains
build a map to follow.
Below us dolphin feels
Sound waves,
the magnetic magic in the ocean too
brings sight,
a fine echolocation its guide.
Sea Turtle moves on a electromagnetic wave as well,
pulses slow and sure.
Oh, human
too quickly losing balance,
devoid of our senses,
toppling the poles north and south.
Constellations
We send wishes to the stars
our hopes
dot the black sky,
forming paths of light
from our longings.
What set stars ablaze
set us afire as well,
born, as we were,
they say,
in nebula nurseries.
Mother/father stars
draw upward our gaze,
though we have forgotten
how we floated on helium
to earth,
as electrified dust
released from the super nova of
numberless explosions
children of
of planets grown full and massive,
dying yet deathless energy
transformed, gaseous.
Hope is illuminated by
mystery
a fusion
that fuels
the living universe
known
and unknown
seen
and unseen.
Excerpt from Walks with Yogi
# 39 Dolphins are not Manatees and I Am Not a Princess
Dolphins and dogs, like my Yogi-boy, do not need to be loved for their youth, beauty and good behavior to be happy. This is why I like being around them–their energy may not always be buddha-peaceful, but it always is buddha-present and buddha-accepting.
Yogi stands on the seawall, alert to a shapes and movements. The energy that comes zooming by strong and fast. The dolphin rises from the water, slaps his tail, churns the water in a feeding frenzy. Yogi barks so hard and loud, his body trembles along his leash. I want him to be quiet so I can watch the dolphins fish, but Yogi has his own agenda–response to the dramatic energy with his own dramatic energy in the moment. No expectation of this moment, no demand that it be any other way than it is. His clamor does not mean he wants the dolphin to be a Yogi-dog– like him. He is simply taking part in a great exchange of energy in this moment. The next moment may be a quiet lying-down-in- the-grass moment.
My ego, on the other hand, sometimes wants Yogi to be a different dog–placid and quiet, so he doesn’t disturb the dolphins and the dolphin watchers. Ego has expectations of the dolphins too–they should not be aggressive as they hunt for food; they should please us, look up at us with gentle eyes and eat only seaweed, like manatees. But dolphins are not manatees and, though Yogi’s big snout resembles a manatee’s enough so we call him a Sharpei-manatee mix, he is neither peaceful manatee nor calm Labrador. I also know that Yogi is not a cuddling dog, that he expresses affection on his own independent cat-like terms. I can love Yogi with small love, secretly wishing he was a “better” dog, a lap dog who eagerly curls up with me, or I can love Yogi with Big Love that accepts his own way of loving me.
Yogi and my friends teach me about Big Love, as opposed to small love. I’ve written here before about my definitions of those–Big Love is unconditional and usually experienced with friends or kind strangers, and extended to all. Small love has a longer definition because it has so many requirements: small love is extended (with conditions) to one other and one’s children. Small love has conditions: be a Poodle, even if you are really a Rat Terrier; do what I want you to do and be the dog/dolphin/man/manatee or woman I believe will be perfect for me.
One of the attachments that I hope my Buddhist practice will free me of is the need for the approval. My addiction to this type of “love” has been almost as destructive as any drug. I’ve felt as if I would not be able to live without it, and when I was forced to do so, the withdrawal was torture: I am not enough. I think that many people are fellow addicts, and they are abide, unhappily, in denial. It may be they knew better than I how to get their supply of small love; at least I am loved for my looks, they might think. The dealer of the small love drug demands a payment of physical beauty or financial success; if that is missing, subservience to and care-taking of the dealer will suffice. The dealer will then marry you so your supply is promised.
On one of our morning walks Yogi obsessed about getting a dog-treat from John, my friend Barbara’s partner. Yogi strained at the leash repeatedly and lunged up at John’s pockets for a cookie. Frustrated with his lack of response to my commands I finally said, half-joking, “Don’t be a crazy dog! Be normal!” Barbara, his dog-godmother said, ” But Yogi thinks ‘This is normal’–for me, Yogi.” She loves him with Big Love, and extends the same to me and to John.
Big Love doesn’t care if I sometimes am not wise or happy, or that my hair is graying, or that I’m not always cheerful and helpful, selfless and all-nurturing–a princess. The men I’ve known and dated all cared about those things. A great deal. So did I. We all rejected me when I did not fit the bill. I have been so attached to that small love that it became an addiction and it sure cost a lot—more than I could pay.
Yesterday I got to look into a dolphin’s round, dark curious eyes–he or she let me–while sliding by sideways along the wall looking up at me.
The other day, Nancy called to see if my bronchitis was better.
Barbara brought me soup.
John (a semi-retired doctor) listened to my lungs with his stethoscope and wrote me a prescription for a better anti-biotic than the one that wasn’t working, to save me an extra trip to the doctor.
Barbara told me I should never feel I am alone because she and John consider me family.
My friend Joy wrote to say she loves my blogs and is inspired to join a Mindfulness group because of them.
Last week in the grocery store check out line, I unloaded the groceries for the older woman who sat in wheel chair with her cart full of items; her smile of gratitude was more beautiful than the fake smiles of models and movie stars on the magazine rack next to us.
I can sense and see the energy I encounter each moment without judging it as good or bad. And if sometimes I bark or am barked at, I can let go of that energy and not carry it to the next moment. No need to demand that you be a Poodle and I be a Labrador if we are both acting like crazed Chihuahuas . I can do the same for myself and others. I can swim and float in the ocean of Big Love or sink in the swamp of small love.
With mindfulness, I can tell the ocean from the swamp. Without mindfulness, I sink neck-deep into the muck and wonder why I can neither swim or float .
#39: Yogi is not a Labrador. I am not a Princess. All is well.
In Honor of Thich Nhat Hanh
Clouds, like memories, are weightless yet gathered grow heavy cover the light. And like the fog of old fears tumble and build one upon the other. Clouds, like steam rising from Thich Nhat Hanh’s teacup float out the window, return as rain quench the thirst of tea leaves. Thay teaches this: clouds appear in teacups, wthe fog e drink moonlight, and can see clearly through fog.
That Got Me Thinking...Featuring Einstein, Buddha, Gus, et al 
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