A time to wait and wonder

There comes a time in every life
when all we're called to do
is wait and wonder;
when moving from this spot
may mean missed opportunity
but staying doesn't seem
to have a purpose; when life's
on hold, and hope and joy
are tethered nearby, ready to burst,
awaiting sweet release.
I'm standing here,
clinging to your promises,
keeping a wary eye on the time
and wondering when you'll appear.


* * *

We are not in our hands

Top down,
the brain is in control:
we are not in our hands
but move them from a distance;
paying no attention
to the data gathered there.
The world is always tipping into future
while we're clinging to the ladder
which traces its constant stripe
across peripheral vision:
there's always someplace higher we could climb.
How can we turn this picture inside out,
and roll away those stony thoughts
that keep us prison bound?
What incantation could we breathe
to make these boundaries permeable
and set us free to float into true being?


Release control:
empower hands, and listen.
Envision and connect
each source of light and color;
erase the lines that separate
and step into liquidity,
becoming one with sea and stone
and basking in the current as it carries us,
rolling over into Now,
the Now that's where we've always been,
that feeds our hearts and
fills our hands with knowing.


* * *

Loving brushmarks

What artist,
probably unpaid,
would choose to mimic God
and paint a forest of his own design
upon a warehouse wall
for the delight of passers-by?
And is that not the choice
that God herself has made,
to gift us each with strokes
of divine inspiration;
loving brushmarks sprawled
across the canvas of our lives?


* * *

Chromophilia

"I'll be taking," she said,
"a course in chromophilia."
And so I longed to ask,
"and what will that tell you
about why I chose to alter this grafitti;
to shift its tones from yellow, red,
cyan, gray and white,
to move it into purples and blues,
then punch it up
with flashes of yellow and red?
Will my color choices, then,
be telling you some secret story,
give some hint of how I came to be
sitting in an airport,
nursing a cut on my hand,
and waiting for a long-delayed flight?"


* * *

Don't worry; be thankful

So what if you're unemployed,
living under threat of foreclosure:
the illusion of success
must be kept up at all costs.
Don't Worry! Be Happy!
So what if the kids are making choices
that you know they will regret?
Don't Worry! Be Happy!
So what if war looms again on the horizon?
For one day, couldn't you just take my advice?
We're standing in Fat City!
Don't Worry!
Be Thankful!


* * *

City spectrum

In one part of the city,
parents in brightly colored fleece
pay $30 each to push
fat-cheeked babies in hi-tech strollers
through an artificial rainforest,
while giant fabricated snowflakes dance
in the heated breeze above their heads.
Elsewhere,
below graffiti-covered walls
the homeless ones gather on the street,
chilled fingers playing music for pennies,
checking discarded coffee cups
for one last drop of caffeinated nectar.
Shivering under a blanket with his dog,
a young boy catches cold wet snowflakes
on his tongue.


* * *

Amidst the shifting, trust

Shadows and light, patterns on a life,
moving across each picture
like clouds across the sky,
casting highlights,
illuminating dreams,
shading reality...
If inside all is dark,
step outside your world and see
the movement and the shift:
know the light is slowly
inching toward your window;
preparing to pour in again.
Take your cup in readiness,
stand and hold it by your window.
Trust that it will soon be filled with light.


* * *

Who knew?

Who knew the water
now so gray
could glow like rainbow sherbet?
Who knew the snow,
so blue with cold
could pulse with fire
in the evening light?
Who knew the evergreens,
their green so soft,
could loom so blackly,
darkening this horizon?

Who knows
what changes
light and seasons bring,
what joy may follow sorrow,
and what tears may fill
the empty basin of a broken heart
until it pulses
once again
with light?


* * *

Resting in delight

I am,
you are,
we are
all empty boats;
some plastic and some wood,
some durable,
some beautiful,
some lucky enough
to be both,
all easily hooked
and lifted
out of our element
into the unknown
that is air,
that is helpless,
that is tethered
to some reality
not our own
and still we revel
in sweet delight
until such moments do occur...


* * *

When will we learn?

Mountain, air,
river and sky;
the feathered wing
of the evergreen tree,
and through it all
the bridge we built
to get to the other side...
all of it fading
into one bright oneness;
all of it drawing
us into the connections,
bridging the gap
between low and high,
between then and now,
between You and me,
and still the hordes come
in their hobnailed boots
to poison the water;
to tear down the forest
and level the mountains...
when will we learn?


* * *

Perhaps

Perhaps if I step out into the sea;
sever all but one connection
to the reality I knew
and build a one-lane bridge
so I can control all the input
from what was,
to what will be...
Perhaps then I will come to understand
that all I need
is here,
is now,
in sky and sea
and palms and waves
and You.


* * *

Hoping for a chance to touch the sky

Sometimes
our mistakes loom large,
like mountains
on a not-distant-enough horizon,
haunting us
with their clouds and shadows.
Today I prefer to think
my mistakes add definition
to a view of life
that might otherwise
be rather dull.
What would YOU rather look at?
That dark and tidy perfection below --
or that alluring and colorful past
that keeps us striving forward,
hoping for a chance to touch the sky?


* * *

Stepping stones to You

Today my clouds are thin,
and graceful;
a delicate tracery of white
against a field of blue;
in perfect balance,
instead of overwhelming me
with feelings of remorse and shame
the way they sometimes
used to do
when pride, or joy
arose from deep within;
small volcanoes of pleasure
erupting and subsiding,
leaving behind islands of love
like stepping stones
to You.


* * *

Does God have bad days?

There's so much joy
in completion;
such delight,
when something's finished
and off your plate;
tied up and delivered
and somewhere close to perfect...

I wonder if God feels that way
at the end of each day --
all those tasks accomplished,
all those lives enriched,
all that beauty created...

and does God have bad days?
Days when everything goes wrong
and the sun seems permanently stuck
behind the clouds of failure and remorse;
days when it seems that no-one will ever
understand or appreciate
all God's hard work?


* * *

Somewhere on the edge

Such wild exuberance,
they said,
could never go
unpunished:
trim them down,
line them up
in tasteful rows;
order should be
the rule of the day.
But beauty and love
will always find
a place to bloom --
somewhere on the edge, perhaps;
where the wind is stronger,
the waves rougher
and the seeds can scatter freely.


* * *

Imagine ignition

Imagine
ignition:
the thrill of transition
from green and fertile calm;
the slow warming of yellow
spreading through your veins,
tickling at the edges;
the veins themselves
beginning to glow;
red fire
leaping to the surface;
the flush of excitement,
the blush of readiness,
the tearing fearful ache
of impending separation
from the Source,
the break,
and then the soaring,
lifted on the wings of air,
the gentle landing,
cushioned by your peers...


* * *

The texture of our being

Waves
like feathers:
this radiant wake
you leave behind
as you steam through existence,
joined by the black shadow
of your reflected self
while each
-- both shadow and wave --
reflects some aspect
of your essential being.
How much
of what we touch
is altered
simply by the texture
of our being?


* * *

Down the drain...

On those days
when I want to wash my hands
of the whole business,
remind me,
would you please,
of the shared and simple pleasures:
the scent of soap,
the warmth of water,
the play of light
on stainless steel,
the sway of the ferry floor
beneath my feet;
of our extraordinary good fortune
in being able
to wash our hands at all?


* * *

This green relationship

Here we are,
you and I,
entangled and enmeshed.
You provide the stage
while I provide the dance;
you the furrowed fields
and I the plants;
you the fabric of my days
while I sew in
the stars and stripes.
Together we become
a symbol of cooperation
yet still some part of me resists,
considers switching roles,
feels smaller and less valued,
knowing that without your grounding
I'd probably disappear,
forgetting that without
the delicate counterpoint I provide
our precious melody might then
devolve into mere drone.


* * *

Born to douse the landscape

How would it feel,
I wonder,
to be a member
of this fringe group,
to stand together,
face into the wind,
sheltered by these glowing petals,
knowing
you were born to dance;
born to toss your head
and douse the landscape
with golden dust;
to feed the bees
and pollinate the world
with beauty?



* * *

Cradled in the Now

Compose yourself
and stand
before the Now;
view the richness
pouring
into this vast
and deepening
moment.
Hold your breath,
and, awestruck,
beam like sun
your radiant blessing
here upon the Now.
Watch
and wait,
not for what will be
but for that
which has already emerged
and lies before you
cradled in the Now.


* * *

The house within a house

Some of us are lucky enough
to have a house within a house;
a home within ourselves
that replicates and shelters
all the small lost parts of ourselves
that need to rest, or dream
or weep in privacy.
And then there are the ones
whose lost selves sleep
beside abandoned fences,
in parking lots,
or on benches;
huddled under rags
against the cold,
their precious few belongings stored
in plastic bags
that lean against the cars.


* * *

A veiled separation

What if no one's inside
looking out?
What if this boat
careening toward me
isn't being driven?
Can I,
instead of screaming
and shaking fists,
stop a moment
to notice how thin,
how perfect the veil
that separates you from me?
The beauty -- neither mine nor yours --
that simply is?


* * *

Monsters at the door

Though Halloween
has come and gone,
the monsters linger at the door;
the witch of worry
flutters still
beside the kitchen window;
the skeleton
of bare bones budgeting
flaps lightly in the wind.
Some part of me is quivering
at the winter still to come,
but the moonlight poured
through my window last night,
the sun is dusting
the mountains with morning blush,
and the ducks are laughing
happily
in the lagoon.
And so I lay my fears aside
and revel
in the sweet, salt-scented air.


* * *

Hanging on for dear life

We tend to forget
how porous
these boundaries are --
you know the ones:
the shiny ones,
that keep us from taking the leap
into the freezing
sea of becoming.
Amazing,
isn't it,
that we can see the other side
yet be prevented
from falling off the edge.
This boat is in motion.
The sea is receding fast,
and a new shore is approaching.
Hold on,
trust,
feel the wind in your hair
and know
that I Am.


* * *

Behind the face

Who is it
that erases you,
that having pasted you to a wall
then peels you off haphazardly
as if you'd never been?
What face
hidden behind false words
waits and watches
for the moment
then catches
that edge
-- you know,
the one that always sticks out
wherever you go --
and pulls,
ripping you from the known
and the future
and the plans
back into Now?
How can we find the strength
to love those fingernails?


* * *