Ghosts of night share my room.
Forms without shapes
wander through this liminal space
that not even my loved ones can enter –
veiled, shrouded, encumbered.
I carry this place with me in the dark,
a ghost room filled with silent shadows
fluttering image remnants
straying fragments of auroral light –
desire, memory, prayer and
sometimes,
wraithlike breaths of cold fear,
I can almost hear as I lay awake
in the dead calm of night.
Portland, Oregon – January 2016
Ice covers every green leaf,
blue berry, bare branch –
clear, heavy, bending, breaking.
The weight of water, freezing flow
as if time were captured
the glistening moment caught
in a watery transparent shroud –
cessation, ceaseless, sensate time at last!
Frozen form, fractured,
snapping in the wind,
breaking in sharp shards
into the bright air,
crackling onto the brittle snow below
time, once again, set free.
Portland, Oregon – February 2014
I am digging a hole in the earth to lie in
using the tools I’ve been given –
morning sun, drifting moon,
spaces between places
when I remember
to see where I am, recall my task.
“A life and death situation”
she said, across the bar, overheard.
Even these, spoken words from across a room,
of a place I’ll never see again,
I will take with me to the place I am preparing.
All the bits, the lost fragments,
the billion forgotten things
I string together to make a tool,
a pitted spade to turn the earth
to dig a hole for me to lie in.
May, 2013 – Des Moines, Iowa (sitting in a restaurant/bar while on a work trip.)
The Van Gogh painting shown here (“Kornfeld Mit Zypressen”) accompanied an article in Pacific Standard Magazine entitled, “Come All Ye Failures – Though we wake in fear of mediocrity, let us cease to be crippled by it.” (http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/epic-fail)
“…the ambitions of our work, our projects, aren’t ours to impose. They are for us to discover. They are best discovered from a place that doesn’t self-judge or self-denigrate, a place beyond our own worst fears of not being good enough. That’s where we find meaning. And solace. That’s where we stop feeling like failures and start feeling like human beings.” (Christopher Cokinos)
As one who writes without expectation of formal publication or remuneration, I found this article by Mr. Cokinos helpful. I have come to believe that my creative life is the expression of a gift and that, for myself and others, it needs to be offered to the greater community. It is OK that my gift is simple, imperfect, or even just mediocre some of the time. It’s taken me quite a long time to believe that I have this gift and that is enough.
The Van Gogh painting is appropriate. He, among all artists, created to save himself. In doing so, he saved so much more for posterity. Van Gogh is, for me, as I suspect for so many of us, one of our greatest Muses.
It starts inside
the end of violence in the world
the end of anger.
I find myself in my fear.
I recognize it, take hold of it
slowly make it release its tight hold
on my past, my now, my coming to be,
even if it takes a lifetime.
Slowly, freedom of the unclenched heart comes,
without flag, country, anthem, or drumbeat.
Waking in the morning
determined to peel away, forcibly at times,
the clutching grasp of fear;
say goodbye to it, daily,
and, on death’s bed, forever.
January 2, 2016 – Portland, Oregon
Photo taken of an exterior wall in NE Portland. Seemed like a good New Year’s resolution. From the poet and Islamic mystic, Rumi.
Buddha of old year
Offers Buddha of New Year
Sublime suffering.
Christ and Buddha speak
Through pages of passing years
Of winter and change.
Sun and winter wind
Wish to come inside my home.
I will go outside.
December 31, 2015 – Portland, Oregon
For now you may love –
your child held against the wintry cold,
your dreams flickering before you in the fire.
Would you could hold him forever as on his day of birth
when he first looked into your eyes.
But, O Mother, though tears await you
and this son of yours be taken from you,
you will never forget his tender child’s touch,
his first crying or his last;
all his many words spoken to you
after a day of play or from a bitter cross.
On that day, Mary, as on the first,
you shall be joy-filled, God-bearing,
remembered with him for all time,
and we will join you in your song of praise.
1983-84 – Menlo Park, California
Fr. Peter Wm. Gray was a teacher of mine. In 1983 or 84 we collaborated on a Christmas card. His artwork, above, we did not use and I don’t know why because it is stunningly evocative. My poem accompanied the card with another piece of his artwork, also good, but not so striking as the piece seen here.
There are leaves in the Garden of Gethsemane
that grow old, wither, die, and fall to the ground.
Joseph walked among them.
She waited with fearful longing,
her face, filled with joy,
her hands, trembling with fear.
She whispered words, like falling leaves,
carrying Joseph’s heart to the earth.
He did not take his eyes from her face.
He walked about in her dark eyes,
walked among the trees of the garden,
tasted the fruit of the vine;
drinking deep intoxicating draughts.
Her hands stilled,
she smiled.
He raised his eyes to the heavens,
burst into laughter,
and shattered the starry night!
We do not know much else about Joseph –
he was a leaf in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Winter/Christmas – 1988, Las Vegas, Nevada
Long strings of lights fly through our winter nights
held by tall bamboo in Alex and Laura’s front yard.
Three pillars of light for the darkest days of the year,
waving long brightly colored arms in the gusting winds of December.
They greet us with joyful light
on this solemn day of long dark hours.
A sign.
Here comes Karen, bringing the mail,
bundled up for a long day’s journey –
rain hat, boots, postal service blue rain coat.
She bring bills, flyers, and magazines,
in spite of hard rain and blowing cold.
Hail, Karen and fare-thee-well this day!
A sign.
Upstairs, I’ve got my down coat on
looking out the window across Ann’s garden.
Where did all your flower’s go, your iris and your rose?
Gone with the winter winds and rain.
There’ll be another time to plant and prune, Ann,
today is a day for heralding the coming of light.
Portland, Oregon – December 2015
Which-a-way, O Soul, this-a-year?
Which way leads to the clearing,
which to the thicket of thorn and nettle?
Not all the same, not all these falling years
lined with green shoots and golden spinning leaves.
Put on your coat, O Soul, your dark down layers.
Open the door, for she comes and she waits.
Step to the days, past the lighted trees and frozen angels.
Here now the green shoots,
there the fresh leaves and flowers of spring,
here the lush and fragrant stilling heat,
there the golden spilling leaves
in pools of ruffled water.
Look up, O Soul, awaken!
She comes again, clothed in night,
at her feet the path, before her gaze the wintry fields.
Which-a-way, O Soul, this-a-year?
Seattle, Washington – December 2011
In Cascadia 