Nocturne: A prayer to the night
Night, linger on
Like a gift
From a loving universe
I have never felt so loved
As when I am in your hands
You hold the exalted seat
Where still and boundless time
Watches the servant become the master
Who plays tones so rare
They fill me
With delirium
Until the earth
Returns under my feet
And I must wonder who I am
Where have I been?
I am eternally lost
Surrendering to the sounds of the ages
Because only music
Can make sense of this chaos
By discovery of the new
And remembrance of things passed
A melody that unifies new and old
Into a moment we can hear
Our own breath again
O night, Where everything is born
Let your silence and darkness
Allow the music in us
Rise to befriend our fears and doubts
So we can sit in peace together
Joined by the freedom to fully live
This life we share together
For EK 2018.10.14.19.30
winter solstice
On a winter solstice
An angel from Duino appeared
And gently held me in a warm embrace
In the dark night
It was the same feeling I had
When my heart dissolved
into the summer air by the Adriatic Sea
He reminded me
of the beauty and terror of divine love
It will always refuse to destroy you he said
The same message I heard from
the sorrowful lady of Norwich
And so it will be
And all manner of things shall be well
And in these crazy times of ours
When our wild nature casts shadows
on the greater good
I will always desire not to
destroy another
or let myself be destroyed
It is what I hear in Purcell's song
What I see in the hints
of blues and ochres of Turner's wintery light
What I understand
from the words of Auden, Eliot, the beat poets
So many friends here
Between these bars of time
Trying to help me remember and respect
the divinity of each of our lives
To remember the love
that fuels everything that really matters
Dec 2017
duino
I felt my heart shatter
in 1000 ways here
And instead of trying to save it
or hold it together
I just let go
And all the pieces,
light as gold dust,
blew through
the wind and sky and sun
and dissolved into the Adriatic Sea
I'm still not yet sure
what filled the space that was left
But strangely
my heart does not feel empty
It's like it has so much love
for so much in this world
That it just filled up again
With the same lightness
With the same sadness
Thinking of the sea
and all the shattered hearts
it has witnessed
How many more are still to come
Only a place like this,
Duino and Trieste,
can hold this sadness
in a holy kind of way
With a brutal honesty
I felt it in the city
I felt it at the castle
I felt it in the sunset
It is a place that isn't afraid
to confront life as it is
A flower that when you look closely
is really a blossoming weed
One that fights
for its place to grow and bloom
A most wondrous thing
the first time you saw it as a child
Before someone told you
it wasn't supposed to grow there
But in Duino
I saw the flower I remember
as a child
Growing from the cracks
of the castle's stone tower
And it took my breath away
to comprehend the everlasting-ness
of its im/permanence
sep 2017
Ruminations on time
Time allows experiences --
Openings for empathy
It is not until we've walked
in another's shoes
that we can really start to understand.
If our time in life were infinite,
Wouldn't we be able to experience
every other person's experience?
And truly know what it's like to be one?
Again.
---
Time, the creator, the destroyer
As I watch the laws of physics
Dance within time
generating each moment
we experience
My mind wanders to a place
Where I sense
The wonder of Time
How it gave us majestic mountains
That will one day disappear
How it holds a space for flowers
To fully bloom and fade and fall
How it quietly brought you to me
And just as softly took you away
Time is the jewel we have
to offer each other
An infinite gift in each passing moment
With an indifferent touch
That keeps moving on
---
Time, the preserver
Whatever hardship you are facing
Remember time is your friend
She will hold you in
Her loving arms
Until you can remember
Your strength and sacred self again
Though it may take
many lifetimes and roads
To fully recall
---
DREAM 528
Last night
I dreamed
A sequence of still images
Shown one after another
Like a primitive movie
1st frame, 2nd, 3rd...
I can't remember them all
But it was like a story
About the progression
Of our lives
And the last image,
Colored in the vibrant
yellows and oranges
of a nasturtium flower,
Was a message
That the whole struggle --
If we can face it
With honesty
Ends in joy
---
DREAM 531
I showed up
Fully exposed
In mind, body, spirit
No regrets
No expectations
Hesitantly aware
of the poetry of my own life
Only then
Was I able to emerge from
The heavy coat I had been bearing --
the one embroidered for us by others
And handed down through the ages
But the road ahead is still long
And all I can do is trust
That when
my heart is aligned with my actions,
I will find myself exactly
where I am supposed to be
No regrets
No expectations
Celebrated for who I am
By a loving universe
Challenged to endure the suffering caused
By an indifferent world
may 2017
SHADOW
I used to think
This is how grace must feel
Like music that brings an inexplicable familiarity
to an alien world
But with grace comes its shadow too --
The fall --
Because grace is of the heavens
And we will always just be
Fragile bodies in this physical world
Where gravity
Is the only predictable certainty
Most of us are not wired to
Defy the laws and
Rise
I'm not sure
The heaven any of us are gifted
In this life
Can ever last very long here on earth
Because of the weight we each carry
And so faith,
and living with uncertainty
is this to me:
A desire to believe
beyond what we are wired
to allow ourselves
Without any guarantees
I want to believe
But if I'm honest
Most days I'm not sure of anything
2017.05.25.03.55
Fierce and Free
gray light
shining through
blue skies
a body
inside a
white shape
upside down
held in place
by the green moss
growing on the shore
like the moving pictures
I spoke about before
bikes gliding
downhill
with their engines running
just in case
don't miss the
elephants
in the schoolyard
and the little girls
riding bikes and
playing dodgeball
fierce and free
I hope they stay
that way forever
returning to the park
and the gentle sea
my mind at peace
for a short moment
in this place
under the big pine trees
2017.03.29.16.36
34.44637 N, 133.9956 E
I don't have words to describe what went wrong
It's like this extremely thin wire
both flexible and strong
Needs to weave through another maze of wires
perhaps laid down as carefully
a generation ago
How strange that adding structure
with something so fragile
is the final step to make something complete
Something that holds another thing together
and brings new life to an old beginning
But it doesn't always go right
Sometimes I have to back track
Sometimes I wonder
when all my fingers became thumbs
And sometimes I feel my heart break
when the wire breaks
I can sense it's not perfect
But what I'll never forget is
the gratitude and inexplicable joy I feel
knowing others in this world
created this small universe
to navigate
And in the process
gave me something
to believe in
3/7/2017
30 frames per second
One day a week
I become a fly on the wall
Where time slows
and the kind, knowing eyes of a familiar face
remind me I am always held
by 'some kinda love'
between this thought and expression...
Every word, every action
causing a reaction
is a clue
On how to escape
the mind and the brain
and be free
I watch a penitent Ash Wednesday
lead to another painful Friday
in a resigned wonder
if these cycles of suffering will ever ease
And I keep vigil of the night hours
-- vespers, compline, matins and lauds --
that lead to secret openings
To scattered blossoms and the scattered rimes,
To book iv, and it's mirror book vi too
Places where I must learn to use all my senses
to meet the true light that is
obscured
by the bright white gate
poisoned with bleach and ashes
I see overflowing soda machines
in the stops along the interstate
A highway of blooms and mud
Whose roots feed others
at the temple
while I fast in vain
unable to escape the truth
That it is music my body craves
That hidden but lonely
blessed place
where syncopated ragtime melodies
emerge in b-flat major
and cherry blossoms fall
from air to earth thousands of miles away
like soft, troubled notes of
an impromptu in e-flat major
All these visions, these small miracles
revealed to us
in 30 frames per second
Are like messages
pulsing infinitely
Compressing time,
compressing centuries
Drawing attention
To the colors, the space, the peace
where I am learning to surrender to
the randomness of our perceptions
to gain the strength
to fight with all my heart
to create a new path
A dignified shortcut
out of here
3/14/2017
A collaborative poem based on a group reflection on tenacity and an image of a dandelion: Can you appreciate the time and effort required to nurture the things you truly love?
contributors:
Melissa, Marisol, Simmone, Belinda, Ciaran, Sandy, Missy, Karen, Emily, David, Stephanie, Jennifer, & Arlene
Tenacity
Tenacity creates beauty
It’s through the depth and expansiveness of creation
that beauty, creativity and transformation can truly happen
But sometimes my tenacity wears thin
The impatient part of me wants to achieve faster,
craving immediate progress and instant gratification
But living a life truly worth living is a big undertaking
and can not be rushed
So I’ve been making greater effort to take care
of myself so I don’t get burned out
and to keep my tenacity from wearing thin
and to find out what it will take to love and accept myself
and attempt to understand how the pieces fit together
It has been a very enlightening practice
Tenacity is resiliency with just a touch of ferocity
The dandelion grows without us tending to its needs
But what does it really mean to put that into practice on a daily basis?
Not always so easy!
It’s starting to mean that I must pay attention to where I am
Allowing room to breathe into what might want to come next
I seem to be able to keep moving forward
One foot in front of the other
Staying open and curious
Prioritizing my purpose above all else:
a huge capacity for love
2017.04.12
This is a poem I found early this morning. These beat poets were really something - such a refreshing reminder when the world can feel overwhelming.
A Vision of the Bodhisattvas
BY PHILIP WHALEN
They pass before me one by one riding on animals
"What are you waiting for," they want to know
Z—, young as he is (& mad into the bargain) tells me
"Some day you'll drop everything & become a rishi, you know."
I know
The forest is there, I've lived in it
More certainly than this town? Irrelevant—
What am I waiting for?
A change in customs that will take 1000 years to come about?
Who's to make the change but me?
"Returning again and again," Amida says
Why's that dream so necessary? walking out of whatever house alone
Nothing but the clothes on my back, money or no
Down the road to the next place the highway leading to the
mountains
From which I absolutely must come back
What business have I to do that?
I know the world and I love it too much and it
Is not the one I'd find outside this door.