Mid-Morning's Knowing

The rusted funnel of
my consciousness
wanders among the
clouds
of mid-morning's knowing,
and only the butterfly
understands the
tunnel of lightness
that has opened,
that has swallowed me whole,
resisting nothing,
saying nothing,
holding only the knowledge of
trust
and
faith.
Mere words and actions
can't encompass
the promise of
daylight
or one fine
dim moonbean,
and who's listening anyway,
but it doesn't matter-
now the drum of
the infinite
oneness of...
whatever...
has begun to play.
And if you drop your agenda,
only this moment is
pregnant with
the opportunity to
blossom
(or erupt)
into the ferocity
of the
belt of asteroids that
ring the imagined highway
between Mars and
Jupiter
and an infinite amount of
power
(cold fusion, anyone?)
becomes obvious-
if not easily attainable
and nothing is impossible,
the sky keeps expanding
and the further the road
seems to meander,
the closer you feel to heaven
until...

This
moment
has arrived.
Heaven is no place.
God is no man...
or anything at all.
The power of the very air
pulses in and out our
limited carbon-based
respiratory untis of
life-bearing consciousness.

All the churches would
crumble
if they knew this,
really, they would.
All their dogmas
doctrines
dos
donts
suddenly seem like
made-up
Monopoly rules.
That's $50 if you
land on Park Place...
no, make it $150.
Right.
Rent.
I get it.
HA!

Yep, the walls would
erupt in insidious laughter,
and people,
once filling the aisles with
impoverished souls
full of guilt and
hostility,
would run screaming,
peals of laughter echoing
off the decrepit stone walls,
and cast away their
beliefs and superstitions
like
moth-eaten nuns' habits
and dive, naked and shameless
into the effulgent,
glowing sea.

How will the next day feel?
I suppose that depends on
the level of responsibility
the mountains claim
in those first couple of moments.
The sun
awaits the verdict.
The stars have extinguished
their searing pain and
will never know that
form of limitation again.
Only the
limitless freedom of
expansion-
and life begins.
Really.

Remember

Whispers
barely audible
indecipherable
inhabit my dreams.
Reflections of
once and when and of...
I can't quite
remember.
What is
almost clear
but not quite,
nearly visible
but still hidden,
soon to be manifest,
but as of yet
not quite in form.
I can't quite remember
these ghosts,
imprints of
tomorrows
not-yet-news,
and the
broken glass from
next week's glass of wine,
spilt on the carpet-
before...
ah, I just can't remember.
And what else I just can't
recall
is the man who appears in my
dreams
once and again,
not quite occasionally,
and the stories he tells me-
the secrets he whispers are-

I never remember in the morning.
Something about
listening to the song of
the abandoned
conch shell.
Maybe then I'll understand.

Some days I wake up
and I can almost
hear his words-
the paradox of
Einstein in a leprechaun suit-
of God dancing the
polka,
of snow that melts the
ground on which it settles-
the boundaries are dissolved.
I don't know, sir!
Tell me more, please!
What is the value of
infinite knowledge if it
evaporates upon
morning's kiss?
Please, I must carry forth
this song of yours.
Why have you woven
your mystical, poetic tome
into the webbing of my
consciousness,
the realm that
sleeps when awake,
awake only as it sleeps?

Shabby Blanket

The warmth of this moment
is a blessing.
The cold winter’s gale is blowing
ferociously,
and I have no scarf or mittens.
My coat is merely a child’s
baby blanket,
bundled tightly around my shoulders and neck.
It’s threadbare in a couple spots,
that’s probably why it was in the trash.
The family at 143 Elm Street
threw it away last Thursday
after they returned from Macy’s with
a new, soft red one.
But it was my luck in wandering
through town at the right moment.
This old blanket will serve me just fine,
and I said a prayer for those folks for
blessing me this Christmas with
an old blanket.

Now I’m home,
the rusty old yellow train car
to the side of the tracks,
you know the one on the way
out of town?
The one with most of the windows
still intact.
I think the lettering on the side
used to advertise
shaving lotion,
or was it Coca-Cola?
It’s been too many years...
not that it matters,
this old tin can is of no use to anyone,
save me,
and I’m sure that the folks in town are
glad
that the railway graveyard
is pretty far out of town.
It would spoil their
perfectly manicured lawns
and bright white fences
to have me too close to their suburban utopia.
It reminds them that their American Dream
is filled with rainbows
and garbage,
with wealth
and
unspeakable poverty.
But that doesn’t bother me too much,
not really.
I’m grateful, actually.

Would you like to step into my humble abode?
Pull up that old wooden crate, and I’ll make some
apple leaf tea.
I know, it sounds strange,
but I picked the leaves myself
after dark
two nights ago
at the orchard
half a mile away from here.
It’s really quite refreshing once you’re used to it.
And bless you for joining me this evening.
It’s not often that young people visit
a crazy old bum like me
out here in the train graveyard.

They don’t remember,
or don’t want to remember
that once I had everything
they had.
I wanted everything they wanted.
I was the head of the University’s
English Department,
with a PhD from
Stanford.
I painted my fence white every Memorial Day.
No, they don’t want to remember.
It scares them too much.
They think their world
is so solid.
Secure.
And to sit across from me in this old car,
to look me in the eye,
to see the
remarkable contrast that is possible
in one man’s life is
unimaginable.
They don’t want to think about it.
They are content to
get all worked up over the evening news.
To worry about the rising cost of gasoline
and how the kids need new sneakers and video games,
and the cruise to the Caribbean they simply
MUST
take this summer.

No, I wouldn’t go back to that life.
I live this way
by choice.
I know it’s hard to fathom,
and please don’t misunderstand me,
that’s not bitterness
you detected in my voice.
It’s frustration.
What has this country become?
What have we become?

Ah, regardless,
there are things I’ve seen
in this way of life that
I would never have seen
otherwise.
Things I’ve felt
and known
that can’t be experienced
in the comfort
of society.
It’s my choice, yes,
and tonight
I’m grateful for this
shabby
blue
blanket.

The Space Between

In the space between
here
and
here
ring a thousand thousand
temple bells...

If you listen
very
closely,
you might remember them
from long, lazy summer days,
reclining beside the swimming hole,
the cicadas offering their song
to the wind,
and laughter echoing off the
rough
stone
walls
of the cave not too far away,
the cave where you liked to hide
during thunderstorms,
but you always told Mom that you were
playing at Maggie’s house.
She just couldn’t understand
the magic
of the earth’s rumbling
from the inside,
rivulets of muddy earth slithering all around
like shimmering serpents
from another world.
The earth’s own lullaby
would always lull you to sleep
or into some kind of trance
or meditation
but you didn’t know what that meant back then...
you were only nine years old, after all.
And just before you would wake up...
back to reality...
there in Mother’s womb,
you’d hear them,
the distant chiming of
bells...
But the moment you’d open your eyes to seek the source of the
mysterious melody,
you’d find yourself face to face with
a cricket
or grasshopper,
or once, a couple of small field mice,
glistening, beady eyes chiming
like the toll of the distant chapel?
No, it couldn’t be...
that makes no sense.

Soon enough,
doubt overtook magic.
There never were any bells.
It was only a dream.
Will those damn crickets
SHUT UP?!
You don’t have time to go to
the cave,
You haven’t been to the swimming hole
since at least a year before
you learned to drive.
And the shopping mall was really much more interesting,
who wants to go swimming in a muddy pit
so far away
from civilization?!

The last vestige of imagination is
sold on the
black
blue
white
red
yellow
GREEN
market.

Bells are only for
Christmas,
for the volunteer
working for the Salvation Army.
And we all get really tired of that
awful noise and harassment
really quickly.
Enough with the DAMN BELLS!
You need a scotch on the rocks,
and when will the kid quit crying.
God,
when will it all end?!
All you really need is
the space between
here
and
here.
Can you remember?

Susquehanna

Afternoon sunlight
glinting on the still surface of
the Susquehanna...

Yes,
the road goes this way,
we have erected towers
of gray,
rigid and secure,
safely above her waters.
A solid, gray bridge,
a clear, reliable structure
beneath our cloudy gray sky,
surrounded by our tall gray
buildings,
places where we lock ourselves away
in the realm of
dull gray suits,
dull gray thoughts,
dull gray hearts.

Electric ribbons of light,
formless,
incidental,
raucous,
rip their way across the river.
Out here,
on the banks of the Susquehanna,
there is just enough
fresh air,
just enough
brown, blue, green,
just enough
subtle silence
to coax
imagination from its
hibernation.

The space between thoughts becomes greater...

The path of the wind becomes clearer...

The hollowness of the world of man is revealed to me once more,
and I feel alive.

No Ideas

I have absolutely
no ideas
now.
I give up.
Hope is of no consequence
for
I am only
interested
in

THIS

breath

THIS

moment...

Shit.
Who is pounding on my door?
Can’t you knock like a
civilized
human being?
Is it a matter
of such
desperation that you must
rattle the walls
of my
simple hermitage?
Fine!
I’ll open the door!

Wow...
No one will ever believe...
this...

Strangled No. 2

Yesterday
as I walked toward my car
in the usual way
I walked into someone else’s memory
or feeling
Someone was struck there
and I felt it so deeply that I too
knew the shock and suffering
of that act of violence.

A week ago
on the trail,
I felt the approach of a man
who I knew would
assault me,
strike the back of my head
and grab my neck.
When I turned to look
in horror,
there was no one.
Only the trees
holding on
to the last few leaves.

I was not struck
by anyone.
The violation of my
body was minimal.
Yet today as I drove along
the highway,
I felt the distinct memory
of being bludgeoned,
of my skull impacting
with stone.

When these memories come, I feel them in my body.

Strangled No. 1

The rushing sound
keeps echoing in my
mind.
It’s not a sound that I heard in the external world,
and maybe I didn’t hear it at all,
maybe I just felt it,
my body struggling
to understand
why there was no air
even though it seemed that
respiration
should be occurring...
It’s the loudest silence, really...
the sound of outer space,
at least as I imagine it.
A vacuum.
I wonder,
were there sounds of struggle?
Did those sharp,
well-dressed men
say anything?
I’m told there was an alarm,
loud enough to make my assailants flee.
I heard no alarm,
no footsteps,
nothing but
the whoosh of blood in my veins.

Is the sense of hearing
connected somehow
to a person’s respiratory function?
Does the interruption of one
disrupt the other?

Infinity

As you draw those lazy signs of infinity
on my flesh,
you remind me that there are
some days
that really need no form,
and they are beautiful
in just as many ways
as a perfect day,
planned and arranged,
ordered and successful,
tidy.

Infinity
is rarely tidy.

Wander through the woods with me,
just occasionally,
and maybe we will hear the lonely cry
of a tiny bird
flying high above the trees...
he’s decided that winter isn’t so hard
after all
and here is really a good place to be
for now.
In counterpoint with our
footsteps and breath
is the fresh rush of freezing cold water,
almost silent in its everpresent
echo.
(Sometimes it’s really easy
to forget the things that are always here,
like the sky and the ground.
But not today.
The birds have reminded me about the
sky and the ground
today.)

Today,
Infinity is the tip of your finger,
dancing its way across my
limited
point of awareness.
This moment is
just
enough.

Please

How much quieter the ranks would usher forth
if the path wasn’t so strewn,
one broken being after the next, quivering
boulders and bleeding windfall
The flock undulates with an unseen pull,
the drive to over-step, over-come,
over, over, over...

Now, in this place beneath the quickened waterfall,
I have learned a new approach
That honors all time and even the
verdant mass of webbing roots asks
for forgiveness when their own strength
moves into an uncontrollable fit of expansion...
A little light-filled being has found our
conversation and
even the trees have pulled their chairs closer,
hoping to hear,
no,
to feel the secret
he has come to share
shhh...now close your eyes

Whoosh...
I have fallen through the
steely gutter into volcanic reality;
My hands have fed the spring-green leaves
and the umbilical pulse we share
is now finalized in the tapestry of
earth and stars.

Pelt

Along the red road...
enter into the fissure
once fresh with the blood of
great torrent,
wandering into the heart of silence
once fresh with dew.
Follow the west wind.

They say that a feather and a brick
fall at the same speed when
dropped from a cliff.
They forgot to mention that the brick will
never fall upward, not like
the feather...

If the current of wind possessed
form,
not only when contracted as a
cyclone,
no, not like that at all,
it would be pregnant with the
strands and subtle shades of
the earth,
follow my form into this thread of darkness.
Sit down in my company and
shall we gather some branches to build
a fire?

Tsunami

(Stream of consciousness reflections on the recent disaster.)

Can you hear the echo of voices
of so many lost ones,
looking, looking, looking for the others?
Where have you gone?
And when the waters recede, will we meet again?
Will we ever meet again?

A great wall is coming.
A great flood.
It keeps happening, Noah,
the great flood comes to wash everything away.

Purification is
a necessary part of nature.
But this disaster,
can we ever consider such a horror
purification?

And how could nature choose this part of the world
to cleanse?
India,
Sri Lanka,
Indonesia...
these places of such reverence,
of spirit, of beauty.
Places of great poverty, materially speaking,
but of great wealth in heart.
America
is far dirtier, far more ruined.
(Perhaps that itself is why...)

There has been a great sacrifice.
Christ in the form an earthquake
that shakes the entire world.
Christ in the form of a great wave
that washes us clean.
Christ consciousness will always return.

There is nothing personal in disaster.
Nothing personal,
even though many beings
have been pulled into the sea,
back to God-Nature-One.

We must remember that
our suffering
is ours.
We are not victims of disaster,
but of our attachment
to the impurity we prefer.

I honor the lives lost in this disaster.

11/3/04

I am

What is it that I’m doing here?
I sit and watch,
observing the passing
time and people.
And why am I doing this?
Because I see myself
over and over again.

I am the woman complaining about
her disloyal boyfriend
and the ten pounds she needs to lose
in order to look her best.

I am the man talking about the
dropping interest rates and cars,
and how things are
on the stock exchange.

I am the little child
who’s bored with being inside
in the boring adult conversation place,
who’d much rather be playing and
running around
and squealing at nothing
and everything at the same time.

I am the pierced kid,
a bolt in my eyebrow, a loop in my lip,
and spaces in my ears wide enough to
slip spare change through.
Why do I puncture myself with metal?
For the same reason you puncture yourself
with busy,
with okay,
with later,
with good enough.
It’s just that I prefer to keep my
abuse simpler.
It will hurt for awhile,
but will then decorate my body,
instead of slowly
and blindly eroding away my heart.

1/2/04

Today at 2:30pm

I celebrate
the Great Mystery
that dances each of us
into the world,
teeming with possibility.

And has the Great Mystery
come to your door yet?
Knocking quietly,
unassuming,
waiting for you to invite it inside,
having no idea that you were
meeting your maker,
today at 2:30pm,
while you’re between errands,
and all of a sudden
there’s a fire on the stove,
and the phones are ringing,
but you only remember having
one phone before...
And your front door has come
unhinged, and into your
living room has come a
swarm of bees, dancing
with a flurry of butterflies...
and wait a minute,
isn’t it winter, and the
bees should be sleeping,
and the lawn doesn’t need
mowing either,
but instead of grass,
there seems to be
nothing but blossoms
unfurling their fragrant,
sensuous red petals,
beckoning you outside...
but the stove is still on fire!
And what about those bees...
there were bees...
but the intoxicating fragrance
lures you out anyway,
out into the brilliant
sunlight...
No, but the lawn is grass,
what are these...
red...
(sigh.)
(smile.)

Dear one, why do you struggle so?
Where do your ideas come from?
Winter?
Grass?
Fire?
In the Great Mystery, creator and
destroyer are one...
lie down, surrender to this
blissful red dream.
For is it more or less real than
the illusion of today?

11/27/04

Essence

To understand the essence
of you
I would have to walk
backwards in time to
a small, quiet place
of possibility
and then sit with the great spinner
and listen to her
tell a story
of a day,
just like any other,
when an old soul
conceded to again
take the human form
and walk the long road from womb to sky.
Impressions of
lifetimes,
of connections and stories~
the web she spins is
without a final pattern...
all I can see is the trace
you have left in her web.

11/27/04

Solstice

The darkest day,
the longest night,
the ice crystals
I breathe into my lungs
are sharp, and yet
so crisp and refreshing.
And on this day of gray sky,
the morning sun
barely nods to me as I
walk briskly
through the woods.
He knows that the day will be dim.
Soon enough the moon will cast her
luminous glow,
creating a sparkle on those ice crystals.
And though during this
longest night,
the howling winds will
penetrate
any crevice or threshold,
the glimmer
dancing across the ice crystals
will remind me
that even in great darkness
magic abounds.
There is still light.

12/20/04

Rock Cave

As the others
make their way
to church,
I find myself wandering in
the true
First Church of God.
The grandest cathedral,
the most graceful spires,
filtering dappled sunlight
through the autumn leaves,
the stained glass
of sky
against the oranges, reds, yellows
of the fading canopy.

And this prickly pinecone
offers up its own communion-
its own blood-sap-sticky-leaking
leaving its mark on my hands,
a constant reminder
that it's all
living and dying,
and we're all a sacrifice
and receiving sacrifice,
and coming and going,
and rising and setting
in the crisp, cool autumn sun.

10/17/04

Eclipse

Tonight
the moon
has a silver lining
as the clouds
dance
across her face.
As the shadows spread,
only a sliver
of her original radiance
remains.
And as I watch,
breathless,
thet final luminous
thread
disappears.
Autumn moon.
Red moon.

10/27/04

Fireflies

Tennessee summer,
people sitting on their front porches.
In the heat of day,
sipping iced tea and
talking about the weather
last winter.

The fireflies cling to their
secret hiding places,
waiting for the gloaming,
that time when
Sun
begins to falter
and darkness
overwhelms
the glowing embers of sky.

The dense, cool sweetness of night
waits to be ushered in.

Then, when the time is right,
they emerge,
beginning their
mesmerizing
ritual dance.
The stars
must be persuaded
to join
the night sky.

So, twinkle little ones,
the dense, cool sweetness of night
waits to be ushered in.

11/2/04

Ambiguous

For several weeks I’ve seen you now
and yet it seems
that I’ve never seen (look,)
you
at all...(the time...)
Time spent in your company
leaves me wondering (do you)
if next time I’ll (have to go now?)
learn something about
you.

Games, strategies, experiments,
none create
understanding
of another,
really. (what does)
A pieced together (create)
patchwork
of (understanding?)
thoughts, ideas, history.
The pieces don’t fit
together yet.

And beyond the
casual (how is your day?)
coversation,
in the shadows of
complicated (will you)
scary
places (hold my hand?)
within, (this labyrinth)
there is a place of
vulnerability, (is not)
a place guarded from the
wolves, (without compassion)
a place that rarely
experiences
light(ness).
(Nocturnal creatures, they are, howling at the moon.
With the first golden tendrils of morning light, they disappear.)

I am confused by this puzzle.
(By you.)
Why do you spend this time with me?
My stories are not so long,
and when they are finished,
what then?
Will you just wander back out into the world?
Have you already?
(Have I?)

12/28/04

Meditation No. 1

Today ice fell from the sky
Torn, tattered leaves
strewn all around.
The rain, less and more and
water falling
filtering through the
nearly naked trees,
clinging to their last few
jewels.
And the graceful bow of the
lacy pines--
meditation.

10/16/04

October Fire

Fire and darkness.
Purify,
bring me to a
glowing ember place.
The slow divine fire burns
away my skin--
not toughening it but
rendering it unnecessary.
And then, my tendons
and muscles and organs
erupt in ribbons of electricity--
And even my bones eventually feed the blaze.
All that is left of me
is ash.

Fire is on the tip of everything---
The possibility of fire
is everywhere.
So when you no longer see me here,
know my Self is in the very air--
in the very spark that is
always
almost
already
here.

10/16/04

Sea of Grace

What is grace
if it is not understanding
that an ant works so hard
to carry one grain of wheat
for a mile and then dies?

What is understanding
if it is not looking
into a still pool of water
and seeing not only your own reflection
but the reflection of every ONE?

What is seeing
if you walk past the grasshopper,
still and camouflaged in the dry summer grass,
and never know his song?

And what is walking
if you never feel your roots
sigh
with the impact of each
blissful step?

Looking, but not seeing,
Hearing, but not understanding,
Drowning in a
sea of Grace
never acknowledged.

11/2/04

Divine

Divine light,
divine love,
divine soup?

Warm tomato bisque,
chamomile tea,
fresh baked bread.

What is divine
-or-
what *isn't* divine?

Howling winds,
crashing waves,
rustling winds...

Sing to me, oh divine ONE,
that I may add another verse to my
understanding.

Divine laughter.
Divine inspiration.
OM...................

11/2/04

The Woolyworm (a limerick)

Today as I walked down the street
Who should I happen to meet?
A fuzzy little friend
Who I held in my hand,
he pooped on me twice, what a treat!

For Jonah