Today, the first snow
in blown flakes and ice;
cold evergreens, tall pacific
giants bending before the will
of winter come at last.
Freeze the year past gone
now the spring green psalms
the warm summer balm
verdant calm of leaves falling
into the now winter twilight.
Come, night long lasting
until the crackling morning
sun illumines sharp shards
of ice encrusted snow.
Portland, Oregon – December 8, 2016
Rivers join, long flowing
in time and space within the land.
The buffalo plains a swept grace –
prairie grass flowing in eternal wind,
heads of grain lifted above the snowfall –
seven fires of unquenchable flame.
Oceti Sakowin
Oyate – born of the land – gather
in unmeasured time, passing
in cloud form, leaf quiver, snow fall
beneath forever stars,
burning sun strewn in layers
across their faces, raised hands
over life-giving streams
blossoming from the far hills
running where horses drink
sacred water of holy places.
Oceti Sakowin
Portland, Oregon – December 6, 2016
Like many, I have been moved by the actions of the water protectors at Standing Rock in North Dakota. I believe it is an important, perhaps seminal action which will long be remembered.
Oceti Sakowin – The proper name for the people commonly known as the Sioux is Oceti Sakowin, (Och-et-eeshak-oh-win) meaning Seven Council Fires. The original Sioux tribe was made up of Seven Council Fires. (Oceti Sakowin – Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center – aktalakota.stjo.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=8309)
There are doors to other worlds
where fairies live in green gardens
fly among all the flowers
feast on fare from foreign lands
hover lightly over still pools.
Emerald and sparkling places
of dreams and visions interlaced
with spaces where magic can evoke
wonder in her eyes, beholding
enchanted realms, mythic times, and love.
Have the passageways been secreted away
the thresholds steely barred
locked before the coming of gray beard
aged walker on fading narrow paths
wandering soul with stick and cap?
She will say it is not so, having keyed
the rusted lock, turned the spider webbed latch
and opened the vine-encrusted door.
“If only, Grandpa, you could see what I see,
beyond the red door in the green fields.”
Portland, Oregon – December 2, 2016
Photo, my own. Artists? My dear granddaughter and a Cascadian oak.
This liminal season in somber tones
of rain as sounds on rooftops
dripping splashes from creaking eves
blowing swirls of drizzle around summer chairs
forgotten in the sodden backyard tangle.
These darkening hours in shades of gray
among the wilted stems and withered leaves
in a wet mess where in spring grew the green garden
budding in bright lime and lush leaves.
Now, an oozing palette of soppy yellow-brown
fused in an organic, slippery, molding life.
Advent – the threshold over which I hang
suspended between the earth and heaven –
posing still the questions I asked when,
as a child, I turned out the lamp to sleep
or, later, woke to a dark and breathless silence.
The only answer I’ve received
among all the bright or forlorn possibilities
is the answer of the season:
Wait.
Be still.
Awaken.
Portland, Oregon – Advent eve, November 27, 2016
In Seattle, rain poured down in heavy salty drops.
From my office window I watched them fall,
listened to them pound on bus windows
on the day my friend closed her lovely eyes
and let her soul drop its beloved garment
to put on a glory familiar to us all –
its brilliance does not surprise us.
She walked in her earth’s garment with grace.
When she looked at us we believed we were beloved.
In her gaze a pardon came over us like absolution
as baptismal waters flowing from a heavenly font
and we were buried with her in the delight of God’s favor –
such was her rising in the morning with the desert sun
and resting in the cool of the evening beneath the heavens.
Blessed are we to have been given a moment of sanctuary
in the place she made for us out of the tender spaces of her heart.
O you scarred and wounded world –
look upon such graces as humanity bestows
in spite of the darkness that deeply abounds.
Remember there are souls walking the earth
who, but for their masks of mortality,
are but fingers of the immortal one
clutching hold of what was, is, and will be
forever and ever.
Seattle, Washington – November 20, 2001
I wrote this when I heard of the death of a dear friend – Marsha.
Feeling of slow motion fall
through northwest November rain
as the world I thought I knew
passes through watery elements
washed, drowned in apocalyptic fear.
Too soon to say, know, fathom
how to remake a world, create an idea
with others from broken pieces,
fractured remains of the dark day –
now the day after.
Time and rain are tools we have
things we will need to begin.
Portland, Oregon – November 9, 2016
The day following the horrible, terrible, no good, bad day in America.
We are surrounded by a great cloud
of witnesses – hovering as ghosts
surging up from stores of memory –
whom we have known or been told;
encircled by once familiar sacred hands
held through all our years, as beads
strung on everlasting cords of love
lost, imperfect, unknown, remembered.
They wander through our dreams
endless phantasms in light,
shadows moving along receding walls.
We knew them who once held us –
stood by them in the aching pews
shouted down the long hallways
ran wild on the diamond fields
fled wordless through dark nights
of trouble searching for answers.
We are surrounded by heavenly hosts
who look so familiar, consumed
by life spent in small deeds
vanishing acts of work and laughter
mingled with that deep unknowable
life they carried in silence.
Some went before us on the road –
followed the curving pathways
vanished around the foggy headlands.
Others walk with us on the way
speak with us, see our faces
lift their whispered voices in earnest prayer
with outstretched hands of friendship –
unmerited grace in every darkness form
on this holy hallowed eve.
Portland, Oregon – All Hallows’ Eve, October 31, 2016
High-wire act of living
each day tottering
on a precipice and long fall –
miscalculations, small mistakes
and it all breaks
into a Humpty-Dumpty mess.
Stop
There is no high-wire.
A path winds through a field
of flowing grasses to each horizon
sunrise, long arc of day
sunset over the field
night begins again.
Calm
Forget many things about life
the wreckage of dreams
the delusion of anger.
Practice seeing movement
listen for all the whispers
between the quiet spaces.
Rest
What is there that has not been?
Celestial spirals in shades of light
shadows of darkness
holds you, moves with you
circling slow around the still point.
Portland, Oregon – October 15, 2016
Ch. 6 of Thich Nhat Hanh’s, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching. He writes of three aspects of “Shamatha” – stopping: Stopping, calming, resting. “If we cannot stop, we cannot have insight.”
Leaves fall in an autumn breeze –
another and another –
forgetting branch and twig
knowing not where they go.
Joy falls from the sky in autumn leaves
through southern suns slant
broken in branches, needles, bird flight;
fall without ceasing through crackling air.
All day long in light
I pass through fallen leaves.
While I sleep through the night
joy falls through its dark mysteries.
I wake to beauty twirling in flight
clinging a moment more
to creation, then letting go –
another one and another –
flung into the realm of the Graces
elemental virtues of the human soul,
parchment on which to write
a human life.
Portland, Oregon – October 12, 2016
Look into darkness, organic form
multiplying within my own body – alive –
portending life diminishment, slowly
as autumn, harbinger of winters night,
passes in slanting shadows
across the landscape of my time.
Write of movement hidden within
from strangers under layers of skin
vital organs, blood vessels – layers thin
as fluttering veils masking passage
of dark and microscopic growth.
Write, poet, words about cancer –
verse inclined towards disease and decay;
give voice to the realm of dying –
cancer’s voice whispering in a breeze
as the far horizon approaches.
Turn not away from this messenger nor
withhold forgiveness for your own body;
do not fear to imagine cellular movement
becoming aware of its presence
sensing in its curves and contours
labyrinthine confusion inside your warm body
coursing as well through wakening thoughts
finding ways into sleep and dreams.
Listen to cancer speaking in echoes
rising from deep and sonorous wells
telling stories from ancient pools
where life began, formed in wombs,
already there, in fertile green places
so like the burgeoning spaces
in which it now resides
on a still autumn afternoon.
Speak, poet, of what is in you
settling down as if in a field of grass
blowing in the breezes of sunset.
Say to the blown grass “here I am.”
Welcome, dark fruit of my being,
stranger from an unknown land.
Sit by my fire, share my bed,
feast on the riches of my life;
stay with me as the leaves fall
and wait with me as winter comes…
then you may go your way
with my blessing – only pray
you not take me with you when you go.
Portland, Oregon – October 3, 2016, eve of the feast of St. Francis.
In answer to your question: Yes, I do. So far, it looks to be treatable and probably curable, so I have hope and for the long term. As I read this, it seems darker than I feel. But, in writing, I feel I have to face this thing. Thus, it is no different than anything I write as a poet. It is about looking at one thing in an attempt to evoke the holy, however you or I may conceive of it.
In Cascadia 