Some Things Need No Verification

Some things need no verification:
Sweet magnolia blossoms touched by rain
A handshake of love with your elderly friend
Knowing that you too make a difference.

Some things need no verification:
The unearthed life inside you
Touching itself with respect and attention.
One white tulip blooming in a field,
Weaving words together with ashes and smoke.

Some things need no verification:
The cleanswept rug
A quiet breathing
A baby waking in the morning.

Love has no ends
But it does have edges:
One edge touches the other,
And curves in on itself
To kiss all that is alive and growing.

Remember today,
For it is the first day of the rest of your life
And the last day of the life you have lived.
This is the day of weaving,
The place where past memories and future possibilities
Meet, touch fingers.
It is the time when no time exists at all,
Except the pounding of earth
And a blue heron taking flight.
It is the realm of possibility
Curvature of roses
Touch of doves
Glow of candlelight.

This space you abide in is called Home.
You belong here,
Between the edges of your personality
And the infinite abyss of God.
You etch out a shape among the stones,
Who welcome your brief presence
With an otherworldly smile.
You breathe in Heaven,
Aiming to carry as much of it with you as you can
So that whomever you meet
Might be made better by your presence.

You forgive.
You remember your wholeness
And that everything you touch
Is a piece of you.
You come home to yourself,
To love,
And find that this is who you have been all along.

Poem for Sunrise

Sunrise. Towering up, chopped down and shaven close. Raw, forbidding. Daylit sky scrubbed blue with steel wool. Cracks crumbled from within. One inching vine crawls toward the center...where is it going? No one knows but the insides, the sap, the hollow opening in the stem. This tree grew from seed, grandfathers, anchored in stone and arching up to kiss the sky eternally.

I am a tree. I stay in one place, ever moving my hands to clasp sapphires in the air. My tongue is fire; I embellish voices in my mouth and bring them to you dried and ready. Throbbing between my toes: earth. Soft and subtle soil climbs through my pores, drips into my veins and fills my brain with lusciousness. I freeze, then thaw at the first eternal springtime. Winter is over. I survived! Now it's time to breathe again, to be new again, to live again. It's time to come back to life.

I've never been afraid before, just stuck in a place where I don't know how to get out. I can still breathe through a hole in the cave, but my eyes don't work and my body can't move. I am alive. My flesh fills with emotion. I drip with sweat, effort, work. Nothing budges except my eternal discontent.

The breaking through is a breaking asunder. Molten pieces of rock, clay, volcanic ash. I am on fire. I spew everything I own into the upper atmosphere of existence because I know my friends are up there to catch me. I know if I die I will end up clasped in the arms of an eternal beloved one. I never fear, for I too will die. I will die with you, for you, amongst you, because of you. And I will live again that one bright morning we all look together and breathe.

The breath openness, stillness, flow. The brake of innocence, sweep of stars. I know not where I came from, yet my hand aches with the desire to tell my story to you in gold-leafed pen. Will you listen? Will you shut your mouth long enough to receive one tiny message of eloquence or desire flown forth from my tongue? This is medicine--flame, fire, flamboyance.

I know you think I'm joking but maybe this iron is too hot to use anymore. Maybe my feet will rust with under-use if I forget to wear my special shoes. Do you remember the last time you took a walk with God? Did you see him? And if you did, what did you say? What can you say to God? He knows everything in your heart. He is one with you. You are his baby, his child. He loves you like a father. Then maybe all we need to say is Thank You, and put a rose on our heart to show the grace we feel.

Tender-lipped openness
A dove winding high over a mountain cliff
I forget
Why
I didn't love myself yesterday.
There were so many reasons
Yet they all vanished
The day I saw my own reflection
In sand.

Where does time go when it goes away? Back to the future? Maybe time is stored up in some beloved one's hourglass, constantly recycling itself to be used again as Mayan Calendar energy or Revelations from the Bible. Maybe all I know how to do anymore is write. Maybe I've forgotten how to be afraid. Maybe I've stepped into my ship of dreams and I am finally living life from my heart. I know I put my eye in my chest--my poems reach out from there and touch the heavens. Do aliens from other galaxies read my words that are all strung out between the stars? Perhaps they feel my prayers as the golden light reaches out to eternity.

Poems

Supple blades of power
Enjoined without snake's bitter bite
An apple opened, revealing seeds
Scattered where?
Up, around, beyond
Every motion contains presence
Power
Purity
These words
Are leaves on my tongue
Flickering fire, flaming gold

"Abundance"

"Where am I going?"
Said Twitter to Twatter,
"I'm going up frolicking hill.
And when I get there,
I"ll have lots to spare,
With enough left over to spill."

February, Orcas Island

Love. Light. Presence.
Choppy waters
Tidal surge
Rocks below me

Yearning to escape tangles of fears
Knowing not how, or when
Wanting to know the deep squeeze of sunlight
That opens at the end of this tunnel

I am tracking alone, in the dark
I hear echoes, echoes, echoes
Complacent,
I march forward,
My breastplate polished and shining.

Artistry is a new voice in the pen of my soul.
I never imagined that language could contain or channel
The creative impulses of my bones.
In writing
I have found a river, a cave, an ocean to explore.
I have not forgotten what it feels like
To dance with stars on the back of a lion.
I remember being a young innocent one
Birthed from the hands of Creator's wish
A bright morning full of possibility.

I sometimes find myself drowning in impossibility:
"These are all the reasons why I can't
Move, play, create, explore, travel."

Yet something keeps pushing.
Something keeps growing and whispering inside.
It is beneath the phrases of doubt,
A heaving surging motion
Freed from desire, taste, or want
It is only an is-ness
It helps me be who I am.

Being is different than knowing.
It scrapes up from under the covers
And explains everything by mere presence.
Being is residing, staying.
Being never judges or casts out,
But welcomes in all unexpected joys and glories.
I have never heard someone say,
"You are being something wrong!"
Only I have heard people say,
"You are doing something wrong."
Being is beyond right and wrong.
It steals away the juice of judgement,
The militant pressure of opposites,
And blends asunder.

"Misery Dies Slowly"

My dear,
You are the one who molds the shape of your life
You are the one
Who fills your body with tender-lipped caresses
So as to touch
More of the earth-opened sky
Your fingers move gently
Opening one petal at a time

You forget your name
You reach for a paintbrush, a pen,
Anything to express that
Crystalline longing
Now bursting from inside your veins

You write until your thumb is tired
Your hand now a claw,
Grasped in eternal fighting for expression.
The moonlit gaze of absoulition
Or friendliness
Is your stranger.

You fight.
You flee the one place in you where love still resides
Stay away--all doors are bolted here
There is no room left
For wanting
Your bookshelves are already overloaded
With suffering
Cast out and drip dried,
You arrive at God's eternal waiting room to find...

Being upon being in your same situation--
Displaced of thought, love, presence,
Entwined in grief
Plagued by pain
You all see each other
And grin
Not because misery loves company
But because misery slowly dies
In a room full of strangers
Who finally start seeing each other

Star Birth Remembered

I remember floating above Earth
Before I birthed into a body.
I held my light close, awake,
Trembling with excitement.
"Let me down there so I can bless the place!"
Star Mothers and Fathers
Cajoling and consoling me
It is heavier down there--
You will be tested down there
Your light is very needed down there

Coming into an infant's body
Helpless but to only shine golden
Difficult, small
Caged lion breathing hard

Birth remembered:
Love, patience, acceptance, welcoming
Holding, touch, gentleness, space

I am at home here
Just as I was at home among the stars.
I have friends, family, belonging
I am an innocent child of God
I understand where I came from
I know my light
In terms of beauty, I am a star

Understanding the cosmic story
I feel reintegrated, loved
My body is whole
My bones and muscles adhere together
With more love than before,
When I thought I was separate.

I am a visitor here
My body feels like home
I remember these faces.
Walking about on a planet
Is different than shooting about in the sky
In one sense unfamiliar
Yet the light and energy are the same

We need you on this planet
Your light, energy, and magnitude
Your presence is the breath of angels
Your song a twist of sky
You will always be remembering who you are
Different from the last,
Yet woven to be the same

You stand with two feet on the ground,
Your arms reaching up to Space,
Perched on the edge of a planet.
An intergalactic traveler
Called here by some insane wanting:

Some love, that goes beyond all doubt
Some love, stronger than a curse
Some love, a fire within
Some love, it burns everything in me
Some love, it stays home

All the factions of who I am
Are coming together
I remember puzzle pieces from yesterday,
Last year, last life.
You are all home
I fit together in one shining piece
A star made from Venus,
A poet's thumb.

I remember being a bird, a stone, a library.
My life as a butterfly sure was fun
As a rose I melted hearts
Enwrapped in grasses, moved by the wind

You see,
My soul is a part of everything.
I can land wherever I live easily
In existing, I have been everywhere
I remember you
I remember our significance as children of the cosmos
We are polite
We wear masks of God to separate ourselves
We wear bodies as costumes of light
To superimpose distinction, separation, vividness.
We dance and pray together, alone.
We sing until our hearts are open
We step on the body of earth,
Our Mother,
We weave our family back together:
The stone, the thrush, the riverweed.

I am an ocean
You see me breathe

We step into our becoming with gracious victory:
The pine, the fir, the sycamore tree
In living long we cast the rhyme--
The Godhead's spell sewn through with time
I pledge to play for all I'm worth
I'll skip and jump today's rebirth
Adn when I die they'll all say
We are so glad she came here to play.