From Where Love

Three Short, Related Meditations

I.

To know more than just things,

words are not enough.

There must also be shivering

within our souls like surf 

that endlessly swirls and frets

around piles of rocks, water worn.

II.

A shortened life is never more

than half a breath away.

Our knowledge of sorrow will take us

into the depth of kindness,

calming rough-edged lives.

It isn’t possessing that matters.

For millennia, many have chosen

to make the best of love.

III. 

Earth changes.

Marsh water rises gently into mist.

Ah, look, there are other ways to wander.

Regardless the speed of our feet,

the wings of a falcon,

or clouds before the release

of water made new,

let us wander gritty and well-tempered

with a gentler step upon this suffering earth.

From: Memories Of Things Left Behind

Unpub. MS p. 28

Are We There Yet

Don’t give me a rational path to God.

Where would that take us? 

Inside boundaries and fences.

That’s not a good fit.

Desire and Imagination—think that.

Universal and Infinite—think that.

The soul’s joy would be found 

in the what and where of nature’s kingdoms.

Lose your preconceptions

of the sacred, the holy, the frightened, 

the unredeemed, the vulnerable, and the sinful.

Think the how of the sweetness of grief;

the where of the freedom of limits;

the why of the warmth of being naked;

the what of the art of eloquent silence.

There exists a barn of words

full of its own blue emptiness.

Does anything really need to be heard

from there?

Cultivate silence.

Besides, what is the answer to the question, 

Where is There?

What of simplicity?

Sunrises and sunsets,

water flowing down your throat

on a dusty day,

the passions of loving,

and ocean up to your knees at the beach.

Compare that to the tragedies

of drowning in whatnots;

of your feet stuck in the mud 

and your head lost in the clouds.

Where is There?

There is wherever your heart will take you.

From: A Preface To The Universe

Unpub. MS p. 24

What Do I Know?

We don’t know.

The world doesn’t know.

The world is needy.

The world is idiotic.

The world is barbaric.

The Universe moves eternally, under our feet,

over our heads, through our hearts and souls,

and I, the stumbling, fallible,

open-hearted poet of lost words

and lost worlds, mending still,

resigned to meandering,

am hoping for that one lightning bolt

that will open new doors;

listening to voices in the wind,

encountering ghosts and spirits,

and knowing stuff of other realities,

of no language, of no visibility,

that are full of colors and gloss and

sacred gatherings that I can’t explain.

At the bar in Pizzeria Mimosa in Hereford, Arizona,

a glass of wine and ordering something Italian,

chatting with the bartender or the person next to me,

penning a line or two, an edit here and there,

pondering the whats and hows of grasslands,

the wheres and whens of the Pacific Ocean,

the ups and downs of the Huachuca Mountain slopes,

the kindnesses of so many people I have met...

The world is beautiful, 

I said to no one in particular.

Just beautiful.

From: Getting There

Unpublished MS p. 39

Buckle Up

Pay attention! Wilderness is speaking. Listen.

It is I. It is her. It is you. It is us.

It is no one else but the memory of many

who ran naked in the borderlands that belonged

to the wind, rabbits, coyotes, and the gathered in;

to lightning and thunder and rain; 

to green and yellow grasses, and blue sky clouds;

where The Traveler has Journeyed since time began.

What will the next thing be?

Creation isn’t finished.

It’s always in a state of becoming.

Welp, now it’s time to do something different.

Coyote said that Love will be our upper hand,

our flying hands, our open hands, our tender hands.

He has loosed a Ring of Fire. Time to fall in.

There will be more than one kind of Awakening;

more than one kind of Revelation;

more than just the noise of the Sacred Assemblies,

but only a one of a kind Traveler.

Buckle up, everyone.

It’s going to be another bumpy ride.

From:  A Rambly Search for Innocence, Time, and Love

Unpublished MS