two hikers 

descend

final arroyo

one by one

two weary

hikers gladly

emptying

into quiet

winter light

Wednesday Evening

Make friends with what’s inside you. 

The delight with this juicy

orange and the way

its sweetness wanders 

down your chin. 

This savoring of friendships, old, 

new and in-between, rich conversation

blossoming on a coffeehouse deck. 

That longing for first hand 

knowledge with what some call the divine,

others the inexplicable-mysterious-

beautiful mundane.

Those huge wind turbines

peppered along a desert highway,

rotating behemoths gathering 

boatloads of air while scraping

endless sky.

The younger elements within you,

sometimes wobbly, unsure

if they’re up to the task at hand.

These angers, those sorrows, 

happy surprises, celebrations,

let-downs and griefs, jumping 

off roofs and all kinds

of mischief, this smiling inside 

where a hidden cellist

plucks his beautiful strings

and music is king.

Dreaming, the kind that happens

in night's half-buried middle 

and usually dissolves 

like smoke upon waking.

Yes. Make friends with it all.

before the word was, a no-thingness, so fertile, so empty..

An invisible lake lapping

at the unseen mountain's

base. Water washes bedrock.

Stone receives fluid's incessant flowing.     

      Quiescence 

Lake learns from stillness 

of granite and schist. Learns what?

Perhaps that erosion always

takes two or more and is never

a loss, but is a shape-shifter.

Nature Is Nurture.

Earth nourishes

those with mouths and tongues

to taste, to chew.

Does lake smell mountain?

Does mountain feel lake?

At the lapping place where water and bedrock

migrate, meet and mingle

is there knowing of the primal

feeding here?

If a person enters this space

where lake and mountain touch,

what happens? Wordlessly,

lapping and lapped, life

happening....Can this be

enough?

Aspens shimmer across this yard.

I am 3 years' old and in love.

Do I affect the trees and these

trembling yellow leaves, much as they

astonish me? Aren't we all

sentient beings really? Alive

here and now before

the world had the burdens

and blessings of words?

prayer

kneeling on earth

a hiker bows kissing

the boulder,

embarrassed somewhat

looks over his shoulder,

then closing 

both eyes

crosses thresholds

unmapped

tasting stone's breath,

sun kissing his back.

back from Winter camping

bathrobe      coffee

first cup laced with cream

cold toilet seat

hum of furnace

warming....

 Awe-Full Blessing

That missing plank

in this weather beaten

fence invites your trembling

hand to reach 

through emptiness

towards another’s private

property and a pink

rose shimmering in January’s

sun to touch

*God in all their surprising

glory and seductive

mischievousness

where you may sense

a trail ever new,

often bewildering

ever dazzling,

for those with eyes

to see and feet

to carve pathways

that swerve infinite forks

into gardens exploding 

fragrance and thorns, this space

of everywhere, a place 

no longer private,

open to all comers.

(*substitute Life, Interbeing, Allah, Yahweh,

Jehovah, Suchness,The Universe Song, 

Great Spirit, Higher Power,Tao,

Brahman,The Big Banger,etc

if preferred. ‘They’ care not

what we name ‘them’)