Nature

Fídō

Have you seen the mud
streaked across 
the hardwood floor?

Or, wait-

Did you watch the cat 
sleeping in the barn?

I see.

Surely, then, 
you’ve been tucked in
by the night sky?
You’ve seen the thunderheads 
crying and spitting lightning
so they could wash the face of the earth?

Well, maybe you’ve met
the white-haired woman
I spoke with in the shop-
who told me of classrooms
and busses full of protesters,
and of her husband, long-gone,
she who outlived 
her mother, father, brothers, sisters?

The one who looked at me, smiling,
who stared then out the window
with a face like a child’s,
and said,

“I swear,
life
is just…
amazing!”

?

Alright, then.

(He waves the pamphlet in the air. 
The world is ending.
“Do you believe?!?”

“I do,” I say,
“yesterday I took my dog to the park,
and stared into the eyes of God,
and was licked by the Buddha’s tongue.”)

The Sun and the Shores of Time

Sitting on the shores of time,
after I’d awakened to the sounds 
of migrations, erosions, tides;
the songs of eons, the pulsing of life,

the voice of the deep-heart
did cull my chaff from my wheat;

and there by the waves
I knelt down and wept,

for I had to throw my mask into the sea,
my only worldly possession,
my inheritance;
and it was fine and well-crafted,
and precious to me;

still I threw it, 
and watched the water devour it.

There were waves of liquid,
and of the temporal,
and there were tears
as the ocean inside me came out
to meet its mother;
even then I went mad.

But after the noontide of this age,
I felt the hand of the Sun
cradle my face,
and I lifted my head,

and the Sun asked:
“My child, why do you weep so?”

And I said:
“I’ve thrown away my mask. I had to.”

“Ahhh, I see,” said the Sun, 
“this must have been quite the mask.”

“There is no other like it,” I explained.

“Then let me tell you why I’m happy,”
said the Sun, 
“for every day, 
for more cycles
than even you can comprehend, 
I reflected off the ocean 
and shone on the shores 
and raised great forests 
from the reactions of my heart. 

Yet only now can I see your face,
and I have missed you greatly.”

And there by the waves,
I laid down and slept.

Sojourners

“What’s it look like to you?”

“A calendar.”

He nodded. That one left.

Another came along.

“What’s it look like to you?”

“A vacation.”

Again, he nodded. 
That one left as well, after awhile.

Time passed.

“So what’s it look like to you?”

“Peace.”

He narrowed his eyes.
“What does it sound like?”

She closed hers.
“The wind says ‘go west, young man’.”

He laughed.
“What does it smell like?”

Inhale.
“Dirt and stone after the storm.”

He nodded.
“Now… what does it feel like?”

She glanced over.
“Perhaps a hawk on the wing. 
Or a horse, chasing the sunset. 
The good kind of pain, 
after a hard day in the sun.”

He tipped his hat back.
“What brings you out this far?”

“Got tired of dying.”

He opened the cooler in the truckbed,
let the tailgate down,
took out sandwiches and beer.

“Here. I was saving these.”

They divvied it up, 
and with feet swinging, 
breathed in deep over the valley
as the dogs chased rabbits through the pasture.

Waves

Lapping in compound water-breaths
against your feet,
a cycle of liquid moving
in reciprocal song on skin

with sand that susurrates
against a tidal rhythm
of seconds, minutes, hours, days, years…

I see you, sitting there.
So what, then, do you feel?

Do you feel
the pulse of creation?
Do you hear
the voices of lovers past?
Do you drink deep
the roil of the turning stars?
Do you sing
the coming of the fresh and crying dawn?

These things are not for me to know,
for I see nothing and everything all at once.

All I know is
when I stumbled upon this beach,
and wound my way around the wreckage,
I found a path made of your footprints.

Garden

“I’m gonna get my mom flowers for her birthday.”

The little one I’m watching for the evening
is telling me her secrets
as we drive home in the summer heat.

“From where?”
I’m curious.

“From my garden.
That’s where the flowers grow!”

“They do?”

“Yes! And love.
I’m going to give her love.”
She turns her palms up, imploring.
“That’s where the flowers grow.”

“I had no idea.”

She brushes the bundle of peonies
against my ear;
the scent of a mild sweetness
politely invades my nostrils.

“Where is my grandpa?”

Her grandmother
continues gazing out the window.
She was born on the other side of the world.
“He go to see God.”
As if it were a road trip.

The little one
looks out her own window.
“Oh.”

(A day before he passed,
my own grandfather opened his eyes,
cognizant,
searching for a window.
The blinds were shut.
“I don’t want to go.”

“Why not?”

“Because.
I know I’ll never see her again.”

She had passed
a few years before.)

We tell our children
there are no such things as monsters.

The little one clears her throat.

Raucous stormclouds gather in rising fists
towards heaven.
The heat outside is hell.

“The storms are spirits!”

“What?”
I wasn’t aware of this.

She leans in to tell me her secret.
“The storms… are all made of spirits.”

She points
at the approaching immensity
of water and air
bringing gifts of life and of fire.

She whispers,
“That’s where the thunder grows.”

Rising Sign

So,
I do not think
any longer should wonder
be entertained
in this waking dream
as we apart
seek that bridge that spans aeons
and even stellar cradles.

I have figured it
in the alchemy of
quantum entanglement,
on the blackboard of the heart,
inside the mandala of time.

Listen,
for water seeks to give.
Waves throw themselves
on the shore of the land.
Rain falls to the skin of the earth,
liquid seeking the embrace
of the deep
and sanctuary of the bedrock;
and roots to drink it,
feeding the hungry pulse of life.

Water gives; so what is water
without a heart-receiver
but only a universal solvent?

Into water one may throw
infinite strikes;
ever will it resume its shape.
Onto water one may project
mountains of rage,
and it will only reflect
what you already know.

Fire,
fire is simpler still,
and only seeks a hearth
with the fuel of an endless heartbeat.

So,
while the free winds
strike their vastness upon the sky,
and paint what they will,
a vessel of water and flame
would be only placed at the altar
before the ancient tree
whose roots grow deep
into the sod and stone…

…combusting growth into dreams
and gifts eternal and warmth in winter;

and silently,
offering a song of praise
for the birth
of earth on earth.

Bones

Then said Almitra,
“Speak to us of Love.”

were you born homesick?
why do you even have words
in this place?
it’s 2:37 AM inside you
here there is no clock
no slicing of time
there is no one here

to remember your first car
to call you Jezebel
to take down your blue ribbon
to pass you a plate of bitterness

that redwood
will not tie a weight around your heart
and make you thank him for it
the fog-blanket moving
will ask nothing of me
nor will it drain my self
and beat me for being empty

can you let yourself die?
you have known true nightmares
but… can you?

i don’t need that tree
for my self to live
i don’t need that fog
i don’t need your breath
inside me

but it would be nice

it would be nice to die / eventually
don’t you think?

i fear one day we may get lost
you and i
in the godhead of the wild
and uncover all the secrets
they’re afraid of.

credit: the author

Haven

Frost clings to cascading haystacks

in the comfort of a low fog bank,

resting

in the benediction of the softened morning sun;

the rocking chair, holding a rhythm,

the barn door, open like a hymnal,

the fenceline, stretched as a sheet of music;

eddies of sawdust dance in the light.

This is distinct,

this is a dilation of time,

this is intercession,

this is the mote in God’s eye,

and the blessing of memory coiled in on itself

with the old lariat in the corner.

Listen to this silent song:

a distant scrap of laughter,

brushing off a rising wall of cut granite;

the fading warmth of an embrace

stealing away into the mist.

Like the mason’s craft,

the mortar cracks to dust;

the stone remains.

Growth

Do you hide when the night growls;

when the liquid that falls from a heavy sky

sloughs the grime

from windows,

from streets,

from my hands?

It makes all things to each other naked

as your words, washing over my face-

this, too, is a solvent

better than water.

But then,

where does what is washed collect?

What, still, is sanctified?

It is sure a purer thing

where the ground is not shy,

where your voice is not swallowed by the din,

and the sky is burgeoned

with a wetness that will fatten the summer grass.

Thunder sings in the cleansing,

giving a question, falling away with the wind,

an answer, leaving with the rain;

and both holding each the other.

This, too, is a kindness

better than faith.