From Grief to Glory

Going to Glad

The taste of you lingers in the corners
of every room of me gone newly
into the middle part my heart
where hallowed breath seeks a new start

I break the day with my long hand
that culls the skin then enters in
the rhapsody of quiet there

Within this labyrinth of timelessness
the dredge of minutes disappears
then takes the shadows and makes them clear

Close the tumult of treachery and whisper not
of stories dripping false assumption
that life and death are grievous sad
then watch the heart take all the glory
as each step turns the trodden into golden
sweet expectation of a day gone glad

Reflections in The Opal Water

Long past noon
when the banshee sleeps
and the tall grasses stiffen,
you may find an indentation in the ground
where lovers, rolling and wet,
covered with pearls of sweat
had open-eyed sex.

The earth saves things like that.
It keeps them like marbles and summer wine
until they are warm and green.
Caught against a rock, sun spent,
they will change their color each morning
until the last wind coats the ground with dust.

Who will remember when lush summer lips
begged blossom from a seed?

In the harbor,
far from the loud noise of meadows,
the fog has closed the sky
and muffled the mood of salt.
Even the sea has gathered oil and water
and twirled some forbidden coffee spoon into life.

Can you claim the reflection?

Flowers in Poetry

The Poppy


Sturdy, yet fragile,
a face of grace
holding on to air that moves
petals, like wings;
She loves wind’s hands upon her face
but with tenacious fingers,
crumbles clods to slowly build gates instead.

Listening, she yearns toward the road the river takes,
wanting to travel someplace unnamed, like him;
to follow the sound he makes, her whim.
A mean wind, she thinks, could take one small part;
an orange piece of heart
that could go with the flow,
even where cement would ransom beauty,
into the arms of the sea.
But she turns away instead
to dance naked with the tree,
one arm still holding tenacity.

Open me,
she calls to Sun, knowing the hour;
the wind has blown the tresses of the field alive
and on the road to harmony
she is not the only flower to thrive.
The sound of the river is life sustaining,
down, down in the middle part of earth
it seeps into the press of dirt
and fills her with love for river, sun and wind,
and now, most blessed love of all, the ground
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Celebrate, dance to the music

Three years ago today, I was surprised to wake up in an emergency room. I was told that I'd had a grand mal seizure caused by a Minengioma tumor. The tumor was the size of a gerbil laying against my right frontal lobe and optic nerves. Before the seizure, I'd not had any symptoms that one would think pointed to the tumor that had evidently been growing for at least ten years. I was in good health, although not particularly happy with my life. I guess you could say I was stuck in time, stuck in my chair, stuck in writing and had closed doors within myself that kept out joy.

My inner self, my soul, if you will, was pounding on the door, demanding to be out. When I didn't listen, it kicked my butt, but kicked it in a place that had far greater impact on the doors: my brain.

When the swelling had gone down, the doctors successfully removed the tumor. A week later, I was back home. At first I had double vision and walking was hazardous. Gradually, my physical self became better, but more importantly, my spirit was flying like never before. What did it feel like? It didn't feel like anything I'd ever felt....it was JOY! I believe that I found a way to be me, because of this event which seemed so catastrophic.

I wrote the score and played it with my heart, and it was so beautifully right. Now, I look for the positive in everything...even those things that may seem the opposite. My window to the world is one that I make into those things that I can grow and learn from; a gift I give to myself.

The poem below, I wrote on the first anniversary of the seizure. Today is the third anniversary. I'd like you to celebrate with me.




I am a load of minutes,
heavy with wonder
at the clarity of just one.
Perhaps it comes at noon
on a day just as lunch sounds good
and the birds are snoozing from morning's song.

Perhaps it moves along the sidewalk,
leashed and exuberant,
wanting to be unchained;
jumping and wild ...
a rabid thing gone to joy.

I see how the load is less
and the forgotten cast off,
as dust performs a miracle
and covers the unused things
until they change.

Sudden insights insist ...
listen to me;
softly the appreciation of little things
grabs hold and gives to movement, meaning
..... so many times now
that the spirit comes
from behind the silent silk of time
and takes a bow.

I've known the power of listening
and now see the wonder of being understood.

What is this willful character of celebration?
It is dressed in wildflowers
and recalls the grace of wind.
It is a blade of grass
gone green from spring,
and the turbulence of snow-melt
racing summer to the sea.
It is hills of yellow mustard
in the morning sun.

It is me.

Dog Wars

When you expose yourself to contrast, you expose your Inner Being and All-That-Is to the same contrast. As you conclude a new desire, you summon Life Force forward into this leading edge experience, and whether you are allowing it to flow through you or not, All-That-Is benefits from that.
--- Abraham


Some contrasting events can be frightening when they happen, like this one was. They exist to get our attention about something important. We create them in our lives for reasons that might not be immediately apparent.


Quiet the morning takes the birds to sing
and strings the leaves a fallen
in sound of autumn's approach and more
the cool is coming through some door
within the sky is change

Walking the Precious sniff-a-long good leash
on the path so often ours
another sound tore the air with sudden rip of fabric
unto the fur and gentle ankle bare
it gnashed a surprising growl and teeth attack

A dog with black lip curled back
leashed to the terrible of gate left open
in ripe voice of rage it screamed
at us a peaceful walking

Avocado torn in mock toss of thought
too smashed and gone the green away
into the angry gravel I cannot throw or find
a weapon save in me
though in fear I hear
the crunch of teeth and slash to air
I cry my louder thunder

Hold the safety breast-side carry
not torn oh wag come shelter
like some wild woolly alpha song
I hear the heart a pound
then kick and see how I am strong

Dog follows us with a lonesome war
my back I turn and growl me too
I'm holding reverent good I say
along the alley home
don't dare disturb the place where we abide

Come afternoon the very same of day
a tarrying with some friends
with a gracious lick and saunter came
another smile-so-gentle dog
to yard with playful good
that even the Precious-good-leash came
from off her doubt and gave good chase
and the sky came dark though lit in me
was the warm again to good-sleep
--------------------------------
What happened after this event? Instead of feeling fearful, I felt powerful. Instead of feeling anger, I rejoiced. Thanks be to contrasts!

Remarkable Grace

I know that there is a miraculous power

hidden in the secret places of grass,

passing silent witness to the way the ground gives

as the noisy trees take root and make leaf

and the shaking sweet perfume within quiet air

seeps from the remarkable grace of a flower.

The sky is alive with motion and song

and the water rejoicing the hours of the sun

catches the bow of withering limb

reflecting it back to itself yet again.

Caught in the invisible web of all time

with strands like a hand print all warped and wrinkled,

the ancient things hang from the walls and the halls

of the children with laughter and games made of sticks.

Falling like stones on the heel of attachment,

belie not the power of a just waking child

to exquisitely find that the petal still falls.

The beautiful water reflects in the faces

of the children of children of old,

for the dying will open the path to the summer

where the birth of contentment opens living again.

So quiet the photograph slaps at the knowledge

that half of the tree is alive in the air

where the birth of contentment breaks out of the sky

and the other reflection lives again in your eye.