Last Day of 2018

Three pink roses peer 
from a blue vase --

newborn stars gleaming

like strawberries dappled

in fading light, fields a'bloom
on the shore of a great lake,

or a thousand geese aloft, 
their song fruitful, sweet 
and wild.

Everything's vast and luminous
here, like the awe in wide eyes
at sunset.

          Lie With Me

in this shimmering stream of stillness

where timelessness whispers then eases

into particles of spindrift

disappearing within oceans of sunshine

that sparkle and calm under waves cascading

into pleasing scintillas of rivering rhyme.

Christmas Morning

Three suns
blaze inside
the man’s
body. Tiny
breaths enter
each fire,

almost secretly,

even his tingling
feet start
to smile
on such warm
and friendly
ground. 

Walking In November Dusk

Tonight, clouds glazed
wild and orange
by setting sun.

Rising light
of golden

half-moon 

washes 

tenderness

over all....

a shy mother gazes
in secret

at her toddling
child.

     Sunday

Three pink roses peer

from a blue vase--

newborn stars

gleaming

morning light.

      Wild Taste

A shimmering stillness emerges 

suddenly, sensuously

within day’s fretting and toil and task,

juicy marrow penetrating the bones

and breath of our lives as all glistens 

and sings in outpouring radiant quietude --

body and world bathing in calm,

a buoyant space of allowing 

without judgement or speech,

where ravens, pepper trees, rosebushes,
stones, and people strolling or sitting alone
become fabric woven from light 
into this single carpet of shine....

no separation nor need for thought to dissect

this mystery of wholeness risen from root,

nor extraneous words, well-intentioned but paltry,

this attempt to describe and to trace 
an everywhere and nowhere of place 
in lines such as these--

faintly imperfect reflections birthed 
from one wild, wholehearted taste--

this ever present, freely given,
luminous foundational grace.

          Foundational Grace

There are times when a shimmering stillness

emerges suddenly and sensuously

from within day’s fretting and toil and task

like marrow penetrating the very bones

and breath of our life;

when all glistens and sings in a quietude of aliveness--

body and world bathing in all-encompassing calm,

a buoyant space of allowing without judgement and speech,

no separation nor need for thought to dissect

this mystery of wholeness risen from root,

nor extraneous words, well-intentioned but paltry,

this attempt to describe and to trace an everywhere

but nowhere of place in lines such as these--

faint reflections of luminous foundational grace.

                         Quietude 3

Seasons arrive when poems may burrow below line

of sound or sight like a shy boy beneath the bed;

a space where language hides under thickets

of birch branches to escape the frightful dream;

lies mute and mud soaked in tangled alder twigs

for months on end. All winter embedded in quiet

until the slow uncurling into light transformed

as mushrooms from buried spores in fragrant soil

magically emerge, as birdsong dances hungry throngs

of newborn beaks.

Or as a child begins that clumsy climb towards the larger

world and his unseen place within its evolving spiral.

Now after such lengthy stillness, image, rhythm, word and

vision stretch encrusted habits, their stiff well-rested limbs,

and breathing brisk air, unfurl riches bursting loudly

into morning’s open mouth;

again, their unseen source replenished, embodied awake

to what is growing ever new from that silent past, in fullness

standing strengthened and restored.  

And like a temple bell at dawn, poets’ throats and hearts vibrate

ancient song across the forest, throughout the pulsing city:

outpouring gifts of rain and sun and phrase to kiss the flesh

of quietude, to praise with sound the living thirsting earth.

            Diane and the Smokies

Afloat in a pond of July sunshine and mesmerized

by the waterfall’s pounding cascade onto granite slabs

below, there came a day when suddenly she stood up

in the stream of all of it, locked her freckled eyes

onto spruce treetops a mile up the mountain and,

like an ecstatic animal, burst into such laughter, such

utter freedom gifted by purity of water and rock

and wind, that three hawks circling high overhead

ceased their incessant hunt for this moment, becoming

points of stillness, love’s witnesses in the great sky

of her hard-won joy.

Cozy

Up early before milkmen and crows and cars, 
before the alchemy of night becoming dawn, 

discovered the furnace missing since last year, 
a mug of hot coffee and this tattered soft bathrobe—
gift from a kind girlfriend two or three lifetimes ago. 

Nothing to do but wait here, sitting in the armchair 
of ease like a seed planted in the garden
of last night’s dreams. 

  Quietude 2

Some seasons poems

burrow 

below line of sound or sight

where language hides in mud

under thickets of birch,

tangles of alder twigs

for months on end.

All winter embedded

in quiet until the slow

uncurling into light,

as mushrooms magically

from fragrant earth

emerge, birdsong

dances hungry

throngs of newborn beaks….

Now, after the long stillness,

image, rhythm and word

stretch stiff, well rested limbs,

breathe sweet air,

unfurl riches bursting

into daytime,

their source nourished

once again, embodied

and awake to what

is ever new from silent

past restored.

  quietude

Some times poems

Seem to burrow

Below the line

Of sound or sight,

Hidden in mud

And birch twigs

For months.

Maybe embedded

All winter before

Uncurling into light,

Riches fully restored.