To Day

There is so much space here.

Filled with the empty and still.

Quiet whispers between souls I know,

New bodies mixed with young and old.



There is so much love here.

In grey skies and dying trees.

Gently bending to cold winds caress,

Needing no thought to it's perfect progress.



The stars are still there

Behind light of Christmas morning.

Balance like I'm seeking,

Between nothingness and thinking.



We're all that spaciousness.

Empty and everything.

Smiling and breathing.

Loving and missing.



Present and drifting,

Apart while connecting;

I'll be it all today.

It's in living, that I pray.

Somewhere To Be

Vivid dreams in morning,
Others thoughts adorning,
Time to put them down,
To live my own.

Heart is slowly breaking out,
Glowing like a lighthouse,
Guiding me through stormy seas,
Nowhere else to run.

Tearing down these walls around,
Skinned knees and handmedowns.
No time to curse the donor,
I have somewhere to be.

(1999)

The Whole

To restless worrying cloud,
Sky sweeps by and says:
Transforming is returning.

I, Willow

Walking slowly with intention,
Overlapping in dimension
Flowing formless, touching solids,
Roots tethered to amorphous.

Then she came in, she came in,
Passing through me on the wind,
To settle in her spaciousness,
To give love and forgive love.

And off we went, off we went,
To find what occupied the mind,
To let it go and shed some light,
To bring it back again,

When all is fine, it's always fine,
Sings sparrow of the stream,
In giving up resisting,
I feel it carry me.

Pain is pleasure in perspective,
Thoughts don't often hold the answers,
What and why will pass on by -
Right here is all we know.

I am the field I rest in,
I am arrow, I am bow.
My strength in bending, feather's lending
Courage to let go.

Release is in the weeping,
Split air the whistled cry,
I hope to have no target,
I wish only to fly.

But if my arc must end
To soft, warm earth I'll go.
Landing broken into wholeness,
And know the growth of willows.

Between Thoughts

It's the dirty of first snow melting.
Dead trees that shimmer with cold manifested,
Attached and holding on like the hair on his chest.
Log homes, layered clothes.
My things still smell of woodsmoke and wine,
Scent-wrapped,
Like the heat did my body on a brown tweed couch
In the basement of a tired town.

He held himself tightly,
And despite my mind wanting,
I didn't move to make him stop.
So he did.
That's when I found lines along muscles and shared space between thoughts.
That's maybe even why.
It's funny how strength and pain occupies the same,
In tissue and backbones that carry eachother.
In touching one, I felt the other.

We let go like this;
Like words on the wings of paper aeroplanes, lost in the wind.
The pages unfold to blankness, drift to settle against my skin.
I left them unwritten.
Stayed respectful of the clean unseen,
At peace in the ice or the fire.
There's much to be said for the presents desire -
Nothing more, nothing less.

Although, truth be told, it was hard to go,
To pass on the act of intervening.
So I thought of all the love I have,
and sent some words to give it back,
and sighed the happy kind for my sweet and simple life.

I'm still,
Alone,
And everything is beautiful.

Here and Gone

There are some moments that take hold of us...
That lie dormant somewhere deep in our memory, in our molding;
only to re-emerge at the change of season, or the scent of wet forest, or the way the wind can blow away your burdens for one beautiful breath.

There are some moments that call forth a long lost ache - or a forgotten emotion that fills your heart with content.
They can be heavy, they can be light.
Sometimes they are both.

... Oh, to hold onto those moments.
To live those feelings again.
To stop for that one fleeting second, and let them fill you...
to be so lucky as to not miss them the second time.

Those moments filled my day today.
They brush the sensitive places in my body, mind and heart.

The change of season.
The smell of wet mountain trails.
The breeze that blew the tightness from my shoulders and made my soul look further from this town, for a moment.

For one moment, I smile at the secret that I haven't quite figured out.
For one moment, I smile in thanks at the single tear slipping down my cheek.

For one moment I hold on and let go, all at once.

Dharma, 1.

Come walking so to kiss this
Plain and pliant mouth.
Don't think more about,
The second guessing of the self.

Jump in mirrored puddles,
Cup your hands and drink,
Let go the hold on all of those
Unnecessary instincts.

Lend me your fingertips,
To place against these fuller lips,
The air has touched them cold and crisp and clear...

Give me the feeling of your face,
To blend in all this open space,
My hands seek gently,
Tangles in your hair.

I wouldn't be so blind
As to keep my eyes
Looking away.

I'd spread my arms and lift them,
Open windows you could drift in,
Stay smiling silent,
Still in words,
We needn't say.

Beautiful man,
Let's be naked under streetlamps.

Beautiful woman,
Bare and anything but innocent.

Still dancing with her hair wild,
Wading in the river's side,
Singing out "There's no such thing as time... "

So we drop all expectations,
Brave to strip and dive in,
The water wide, pregnant
With everything.

We swim out to the deep end,
Lay limp beneath the surface,
And float there, warm as children,
I learn to breathe herein.

Square Hot Air Balloon.

Don't want so much so fast,
Take it easy, take a breath,
More is an addiction that can't last.

Something happens to the child, content and entertained,
Growing smaller in a body getting older.
How strange, how suddenly,
It starves itself by looking further...

Sweet Passion Pressure
Never got the heart to better,
Just made it twisted up and under.
So fit me in a box of gray,
And watch the wind blow me away...

Or was it you who floated out to sea,
While watching clouds you thought were me,
Drift by with no apology?
Perspective straightens things.

Don't want so bad to know me,
You'll miss out on who I am,
Just a character in stories
Written in a flourished hand,
Who's prophecy, who's cross to carry,
Can you draw a line? No?
Erase it all and right and wrong
Will cease to cloud your mind.


That's where to find me.

Music Street

The city sounds
Come from your mouth
In music.

Car radio
Interrupting
Sustained notes...

I hear reverse,
O'er one and one
To thumb

And crosswalks
Under long vibrato.


Fingerings
Like maple leaves
Around and down an octave.

Play me sweet
A second act.

Play ever green,
Play Halifax.

Body of Water

Grab this kiss like you would miss it,
Tempt your fate like you create it,
Ride this wave like you could save
The sea itself.

But oh, didn't you know?
The water's calmer underneath
The undertow.

Some would say I lost my way,
Some may think I'm on the brink,
But I know flowers bend in darkness.
In the quiet hours,
Secrets spill over the floor,
Making mess of others noise,
Light is found through cracks in floorboards.

Oh, didn't you know?
The water's calmer underneath
The undertow.

So grab this kiss, don't miss it,
Shake your fate, create it,
Ride this wave
Like you're the sea itself.

Tall Grass

I want to write a poem about my life.
To sum it up with words, like love, change...

Courage.
Strength.
Connection.
Wisdom.

I want to tell you all the secrets,
Held in all the private places,
That you all already know.

Of how all the invisibles
Bring us all to the tangible -

The goal.
The point.

I want words to put to every moment I sit inside the place,
Where truth resonates peacefully
Despite the facts.

Where an upright universe is represented
By small failures.

It's a field...
Sleeping bears and grazing elk,
Breathing evergreens with their pet sparrows.
Bumblebees teased by laughing tulips.

And my heart, with all it's cracks,
Lying in the tall grass.