HOPE'S CAVE

Swimming solo into the cave without food

Or a map, into the promise of nasturtiums

And quiet beyond silence, into days of boredom

Dissolving these nights of discovery where water,

Stone and the complete absence of light

Coalesce to scintillate a vulnerable hope

Birthed squalling, bloodied and beautiful,

Blind to betrayal, to nasturtiums,

To being hurried through darkness.

Liberation blooms in sustained fidelity 

to the Mystery of one’s own essence, 

to that quiet place where two sit together 

cognizant of death and obedient to Silence

while seahorses soar across blue skies

above a field spacious and green,

birthing surprise, thresholding joy, 

waking to laughter, fathering new life....

Have You?

Have you every wanted
to wander inside

waterfall's beckoning glisten,
it's tumbling wonder and shine,

and like a tendril of fern
clinging to granite,

abide wordlessly within
these ever misty
effervescent insides?

Heidi's Time 8:23-823

This time was hers'; this Phoenix address,
also hers' always.

All the way from the curb of tears
and dewdrops shimmering

on backyard blades of grass to the vacant
lot and scrawny palm trees

where her childhood home, now vanished,
once stood submerged in Arizona heat
that scorched sidewalks scraping
bare feet raw.

Now with sparkling eyes, toes soaring,
she visits dancing twice daily like clockwork

from the reliable home she'd always yearned for--

this numberless, spacious palace
of nowhere,

where she shall forever reside.

There are those who
would insist

that to make an altar
of sorrow and regret

and to bow reverently
towards those faded
flowers

is a profound mistake.

I, happily, am
not one of them.

after lunch, walking
down to the lake
with the root
of so much,
arising....

4 steps into a labyrinth of stone

(This spiraling space for not wondering why)

'amnesty' circles then lands on his shoulder

like a seahorse or angelic maverick 
suddenly wrested from cerulean sky