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

25 August 2013


 and here the unframed days are gathered up, or swept away


 its been a subtle summer, no great cataclysms or awakenings
just the spread of sunlight and the spill of stars
peaches and meteors and watching the cornfields grow 
from rows of wee green chevroned blades
to a phalanx of sweetgrained legionnaires
their braided pollen tassels broadcasting news of
assurance for the future
into suggestive umbilical silks
and the pinstripe hayfields pushing up plush
 through which the wind would play in invisible waves
and now, cut, and dried, 
are spiral-bound, reconvened
to keep hide and Spirit entwined through another less generous season


 danced and swam and held a hummingbird in my hand
chased a rogue rhode island hen down the low stone wall
beheld the triple conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury
nurtured my own Triumvirate, terrestrial, no less a wonder


 there were no tomato sandwiches this year
there was no ocean


 the Path
practicing Honesty and Authenticity like learning to ride a bike
he said the tools we use are training wheels
a long bar for the highwire until we understand we cannot fall
we are the wire the walker the bar

 a bright hot day turns to overcast afternoon glare
we pass Time on our way up the winding stair
 toward the covet bed with linens soft as birth
where flesh is rendered into a watercolor with pigments of fire and earth
sparrows hush in the apricot tree as the immortal rain falls down
concupiscent is an adjective, cupidity a noun


 my body aches, but my mind has been as blank and untroubled as the naked page
quincunx colonnade reams i feed, leaf by leaf
into the roaring forge
into the insistent hungry feral foundry of my heart
all that armor now just so much scrap
a dull reflecting pool, dregs in the crucible.
how excellent and strange to feel light and air on those long imprisoned vulnerabilities
to harden them off like seedlings in springtime
to unroot with renewed vigilance the invasive, stealthy, rampant weeds
to feel the weight of fruit as it falls with perfect suchness into your hands
to honor the dark refuge of winter, to rest between incarnations

there is no cure for curiosity, its said, and no price i would ever accept for my wonder

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"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)