i'm working out the terms of a hundred little daily deceits
looking at all the beautiful faces i love
and yet betray in only a few seconds,
all in the time it takes to say
''of course not''
or "don't be silly"
little denials in the space of simple conversations
which are, in reality, full-time moral undertakings
requiring the ten-thousand angels tap dancing on the dark side
to pull it off.

of such is the fragile edge of my existence
where  i walk close to walls like a nun
where i wake in the night
alarmed by my own breath
where i accept failure
and wait for the consequences
of becoming more like myself
of admitting the lies
not unlike peter,
but without the halo.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

woman at the well

all they think about
is the sin of the doing
of hair coming undone
the exotic misery of
life borrowed

there are worse things
could've missed it altogether
not found the dearness of it
deep to the marrow
in a softly shared song
not a life for the faint
not a life seemly chosen

yet even along the small path
of one small spark
is divine purpose
a radiance of angels
the impossibility of love's goodness
unconditionally settled for and joyfully
made do

i.

transition to fall is subtle here
colors don't happen on the outside of 

old cedars and ancient oaks
but nature's way is a kind of wild humor
everything is felt, not seen 

the shimmered heat of brown and yellow
and today a raucous wind is as welcome as water
after eighty-nine hundred-degree days
an unrelenting friendly state, texas

where hell never freezes 
and heaven is the water in a highway mirage

ii.
think i'll start writing that musical now.
the one i have talked into existence
assuming grandly that if thought indeed becomes reality
it's so very there already
i feel so terribly alive in that thought

iii.
a bright windy day 

after so many days immobile with heat
so maybe it's time to kill off somethin'
to celebrate a new beginning

chop down a tree maybe

a weird subtext to the brilliance of this day 
like that not-so-subtle message

spelled out by the siblings
a couple of nights ago
withhold the prescription
when pneumonia comes
so she can die
she keeps saying she wants to die 
so, like, let nature take it's course 
the old person's friend and all that ...

i look up into the spread of these 300-year-old trees
that are still coursing life
that live with me and my100-year-old mother 
and the very idea of helping death 

sounds like nothing natural even to this parched earth 

sounds like martian words for immoral
and i have no rosetta stone for that

iv.
wind screams through the oak
in the middle of the dark
out here in my sanctuary
a dead branch crashes and clatters 

on the corrugated roof of the cantina
but the old ivy on the giant oak clings on

even now in the course of things

even at midnight  

green shoots are comin' on with no quit

spirit moving among the lichens and decay 
foahevah, my sistahs. foahevah.

for you

o dear God. there we were,
bent at our altars to life
being and doing the daily things
weighing our worth 

as if lives were made whole 
by luck or by sweat
when it was all grace.
were it not for mercy

we would have arrived back home 
as accomplished as two motes on a dusty sill.
but here we are
light as angels

dumbfounded by love
tripping over all of the rules of this life.
perhaps it was the plan
we had to come this far

to know how precious it all is.
even without another day,
it would be enough only to have
these moments

knowing who we are 
and holding hands.

while moonlight is still warm on the bed
and moonshadows play on the floor
a silent form moves
in my dreaming house
its hands feeling along the walls.
is this an angel messenger
concerning itself with
the soundness of my heart?
the strength of my soulseams?

am i in trouble? how would i know?
where are fat cows and lean cows in this dreamscape?
and for God's sake where is joseph when you need him?
behold i promise to do yoga and granola
and carefully ponder the mercies of this life
until sufficiently fortified against whatever must come...
but please God make it short and sweet
because i am already up a tree
full of nuts and mischiefs
and there be bears out there...

finding, knowing, being

how do you come to know
spirit and flesh
as two beings, not one?
what springs from the heart
and mind to tell?
look at your hand, and whose is it?
why are you in this body and not that one?
stand in the wind, know the chimes
stand on the porch, know the pungent rain
there streams a centering warm blueness
that unfolds and washes over
thrumming the panes, drowning out words
and a feeling of presence
from the awesome unknown
comes to comfort and reveal
bends your soul over the anvil of humility
smiths it in a world of difficult people
strikes you with the thousand tiny hurts
and quiet miseries
pounding out the hardness
until your being vibrates closer to true
in the asking and telling
and doing of love

steely aqua and tawny pink 

smoothing and gentling
glides the morning

an osprey sweeps in high wide circles

the silence of dolphins curl the surface below

a fisherman tends the water's edge

two great blues stand reverently by

the waves offer themselves endlessly

now it comes up all shimmery ivory

and beckons a walk on the sands of eden

...

so before i'm thrown back out on my own

where change and uncertainty loom without a plan

where aging and mortgages and medicare happen

i'm still morning inside

i feel magical and full of wonder at how it will all go

something bids.

we can do this life thing

let's get on with it

there's an osprey out there in my beach world
slinging herself high and low in a brilliant sky over the roiling surf
and she hunts tirelessly, in effortless circles, endlessly
swooping, gliding, striking, climbing
slicing the sky in sweet clean arcs
inscribing grace and terror on the may morning air

and there's a haunted mindbeast in here, in my writing world
looking out from behind round glasses and giant porch windows
where i write and unwrite terrible, helpless lines, endlessly ...
taped to the desk lamp there's a picture of you
sticking out your tongue,
pulling up your shirt,
rending my heart with your irreverence.
what a mess i am. and then i remember what this week is all about.
so off i go for a walk out where she hunts,
to feel her energy, to be hawk,
to attempt soaring out
and look at things from somewhere else for awhile.
so to live this moment, so to write another day,
scribing with a lighter spirit after the wind has had it's way with me.

things not unsaid

all of these little messages i leave for you
the clipped typeytypey emails shipped off into the ether
the txt msgs thumbed on a tee-tiny screen
the words from my lips into the little phone holes
after listening politely to all of your instructions

God knows how they stay together in little strings of sounds and letters
how they do their little word lives
how they get from here to there without utterly losing it
how they keep from pressing forward and getting pushy with each other
how they simply and obediently line up and go on as they do
carrying their little bundles of emotions dutifully
not stopping to untie them and sort through what was said
not rearranging things to make better sense
no, they just carry on, the little words
sent from me to you
arriving somehow pristine and crisp or soft or languid 
as when they left my fingers
or slid off my tongue

but when you notice them is another thing in time.
i suspect by then it is all a mush, an untimely revelation
of things said or written. oh well. there they are anyway.

in my mind's eye i see
the clouds of these little electronic nothings
fluttering in the nearby magnetic space
waiting for you to notice them
stuffed in the mouth of an emailbox or on a cartoon speakbubble
languishing in an audio backroom waiting for a tiny door to open
and beckon them to dance and sing into a willing ear
these messengers of love and play and musing
of small anxieties and sweet nothings
live and move and have their being
in this life i share with you
i never know if you get all of them
or even most of them
but if only one gets through
you will have yet a few precious words more
on top of all of the long looks between us
over and above all of the wondrous other moments
you will have these words
tumbling out of me in text and subtext
saying over and over
i want all of you forever
all of you
forever
all of you
forever

screw good friday.

what on earth am i doing here.

life is stupid ugly.

all that heartbreaking everydayness. why should i care.

 the meanies in this world are big. arrogant. indifferent. 

why go out and get myself killed for loving.

i think that's what happened, actually.

for shit shure he didn't die for people's sins

because Love doesnt do that.

we imperfect ones are who do that.

we kill.

we maim.

we pollute whole oceans and defile the good earth.

we are the only ones capable of being not-God.

God please.

dont make me love people who don't love me.

let me just be skinny and beautiful and perfect

so i don't have to be fat and dumb inside.

so i can love me.

so jesus can still be alive and laughing in this world

without me killing him every time i forget 

that he is in all those other people

and me,

that i am made of the very Love 

that i long for.
i can't bear that.
can't bear it.
Love and Mercy
please be known to me
in the breaking of everyday bread.

as fresh and whole as the beauty of i and thou formed

from the Sacred Cry over each new soul 

from the Infinitely Profound into this great world

so are we loved, infinitely, profoundly... 

still and forever does that Love always come 
called or unbidden

and is never not ours, nor far
but here ...waiting, holding, knowing

standing at the door looking out in the garden for sign of laughter
spring has created its usual riot
and i'm about to miss it

taking care of the soul is a hands on job and i'm so weedy,
overgrown and brambly with thinking
some days i'm half-starved for wonder

its well past time to be  digging around, poeming, watering
all the brownish looking things inside...
hoping yet to scratch up green on a deadish stick...

looks promising... will have to work at it. risk sweating.
getting my heart all muddy.
come love. bring your spade.

another day, another valentine

thing is
love is just as real as rocks


or socks or a fox or a box


people know how to deal with rockses and sockses and foxes and boxes


love, not so much


if we could only see reality for what it is
maybe we could get to know love better
and maybe even know how to live it

song for tura on her 100th birthday - feb 4th, 2011

mama, you are a wonder

you laugh so easily

you always look to see 

that nobody's left behind

mama, you are a picture

sittin by the fire

talkin to people i can't see

waitin at heaven's door

but mama, you're not goin there yet

we've got a little more time here with you

and while you're still here

we'll play a little dominoes 

listen to roger's sermons 

laugh at something we said

and you'll say ''my stars''

and ''land sakes''

and have a glass of cabernet

every day at 4 o'clock

mama, you are a wonder,

you laugh so easily

with people i can't see

waitin at heaven's door

but mama, you're not goin there yet

we've got a little more time here with you.