Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

31 January 2010


"Heaven ain't bad, but you don't get a lot done."



 

"Legs to walk and thoughts to fly / Eyes to laugh and lips to cry / A restless tongue to classify
All born to grow and grown to die."

 

19 January 2010

18 January 2010



fruit and food feeding the heart that stood at the window in the night cold years away from your own skin the world a hard floor and hunger and turning around theres a face you remember eyes gently smiling into your hands and the smell of coffee cumin and pine trees water running under the snow teaching us to love what we dont yet understand.    

 

its home wherever we go embracing strangers for their sad stories lives lost on elevators and killing fields like we were the angels we said we were a long time ago.  your hand is home your small mouth that says what could never not be said anymore and the eyes that waited for some sign in the lost night watching the snow watching me waiting with so much to say an open palm that holds everything.  





into me you bring lifetimes of Light and oracles fed on blood and fire speaking of Great Love.  into me you come familiar and welcome the spring rain the summer moonlight the train you draw me away from you teach me how to play again.  to want to be again.  you give me back myself you make it safe to return.  in the shell of my life you gently place a pearl i slipped into your pocket a lifetime ago.  it is luminous perfect it is what i thought lost lost and gone to the bottom of time but its been with you all the while and gently it settles into the breast of the shell and becomes blood a beating heart where for such a lonely while there was only a grey dove in a dusty cage.  on the edge of the night we set the dove free.



the words dont choke in my throat.  the joy isnt stillborn.   its like a hidden spring.  before me behind me above me beneath me the Light in your form starlight in a paperbag i carry clutched to my breast the heat leading me home.  and in secret darkness we reveal fragile plans thirteen moons and a boat cut away from the shore.  we trace eachother in deep morning sweetness rising silent simultaneous this stitching together of whats been left behind by the ravenous blind.
 
 

as if it were only a matter of time the infinite variables adjusting two trajectories toward some miraculous reunion.  we stumble laughing through the dark of uncertainty glad for each other over this threshold and into a more beautiful now that makes sense at long last together like something revealed in the spring beneath an eternity of snow something sweet and spry reaching toward the sun reaching with love and wonder into its own existence.  well rested, lessons learned, heart open.

 

 the life of the world becomes a gift we are surprised at painlessness and understanding.  this is how its supposed to be, we suppose.  two weary travellers looking up from the road to find themselves at home.  angels on the bridge over the valley trees and stones books and bowls all in common and extraordinary.

 

 behind me i leave energies and talismans, i leave painted sheets and echoes.  i leave a space to fill with my lifetime soon returning never more to wander empty and bereft.  never more to wonder where i belong.  we are generous in our patience and wealthy in our faith.  we are sated in our language and in Love are made whole.  

 

"When I am troubled in the night he comes to comfort me.
He wills me thru the darkness and the empty child is free to take his hand his sacred heart the heart that breaks the dawn.
Amen. And when I think I've had my fill he fills up again."
 
-Patti Smith





The Banjolin Song

She stole my heart and made me sing
She tore me limb from limb
I did not think that I could love
Or be loved that way again

How glad I was to be myself
And use my heart once more
How glad I was to be a man
And love that girl that I adore

Well my eyes shall see light again
And my heart shall bleed right again

11 January 2010

"Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing."




an old friend in the bright serendipitous cold of early january here on the 49th latitude.  he is still beautiful to me, he has not changed.  still that quiet aching sorrow behind his eyes a secret lake with some enchanted afternoon island in its center.  we are all preparing to move, but its winter and not the time for changing.  i kissed him suddenly chastely before sugarwater legions and forgot what i came for.  after double pointeds and darning needles i came back and there he was again.  i drew him in with my eyes unflinching and released him like birds to be free.




the struggle the contractions that contort you and make you scream out in your dreams.  the lighthouse we watch strapped to the mast of choices made as the ship was sinking.  two more days on a train in a town that noone lives in.  then my life in a car in a driveway with no plates, waiting for papers like some balkan refugee. 

and then theres you, the first sentence of every story i have yet to write. 



03 January 2010

"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well."
-V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)