Words On Fire

We need words 

rampaging back and forth,

up and down from everywhere, 

like blood drained from an opened vein.

Words that carry life and death,

danger and challenge, risk and terror,

love and kindness, fearful and brave,

wandering in the heart of darkness,

feckless and undaunted;

searing, razor sharp words slicing

the reigns of blind stupidity,

mediocrity, and tyranny,

shredding all of them

into millions of pieces.

In the end what we really need are words

of blazing love, blistering fire unleashed;

unabashed, bare, vulnerable, indomitable,

ready to ignite a fearful heart 

and go bravely into the wild passions.

From: Small Places, Big Places, Everywhere

Unpub. MS p. 28

The Day Came

 A Meditation

What was my reason?

How did my voice become?

When did my heart awaken?

Why was my voice so quiet?

What has my underground flow

to do with anything?

A day came and I knew,

without words, but knowing came  

in a terrible melancholy of memory.

When is the truth?

How is the truth?

Who speaks the truth?

What was I thinking?

And so I hit the road.

I followed a road to How.

Where it was I didn’t know,

but I found it, though it ran through

places where so many had already been

and had never asked Why.

What I found wasn’t lost.

It was there all the time.

And my old failures?

Some became red wines.

Others, the stuff of dreams.

From: Dreams, Memories, and Leaps Into The Wilderness

Unpublished MS p. 2