Do not shrink back as the cross drags by

Do not flinch as the hammer rings and nails drive

Into flesh and bone, hands and feet.

Lift up your heart 

As he lifted his own in prayer. 

It was his cross, his own mortal journey,

Being in this world but not of it.

Willing his body to accept it all, 

Owning the Love to forgive it all. 

With rough hands and everyday parables

He taught us to heal chaos with kindness,

To heal ourselves and others with forgiveness,

To push the edge of Love ever forward,

To expand the universe of who we are—

Reaching beyond our illusion of days

In a wide embrace of this life we own 

To create the Good as he has shown. 

Magic is full on this day ... 

bewitched as it is with a snowfall   

out of dreams. 

And I wanted bluebirds.

So here they are ...  

flying all about, an amazement of color

in the brilliant white expanse.

The spell that is a white Christmas this day 

holds fast the mind

that conjured it—

out of desperate wanting—

and binds it to wonder. 

Imagine what else I might ask

Imagine what I could do in a year of days

desperately wanting every good thing,

all that could be, 

and all I could become.

 

happiness doesn't happen, you choose it

out of your own will of mind and spirit.

love, however, apparently does its own choosing

out of its own purpose and time ...

it happens.

for now, let it be enough for me,

choosing to be happy with your voice

the infinite reach of your mind

the delicious wanting.

but as for this love that chose us 

it is here, and in the time that is left

in what fellowship of mind shall we take it?

to will an extraordinary thing into being

or leave it as it lies, in some past life?

I do not want to be clean of all moral turpitude.

I want to be held.

But the sheer volume of your virtue 

could fill oceans

and build mountains

and outshine all the stars in the sky.

Who am I to ride the wind

over the vastness of such self-mastery?

you do not know the duality of our being

whereas it is my most sacred understanding

of why we are here

and so you still sit there                                               

not knowing what you want to do 

with your one precious life

I can’t reconcile melancholy 

In this soft September sun.

There’s you, still, 

and the knowing.

An uncertain breeze 

whiffles the long hanging branches 

of the tallest weeping cherry in town …

I'm sitting still on the porch,

breathing in all my good fortune

still inhaling, and exhaling, still here. 

But the music of my mind is a bluesy 

passacaglia and fugue

with your face on it.

Isn’t it just like us to be all 

augmented this and diminished that,

all agnus dei and alleluia 

and no amen.  

 

April snuck by incognito

like nothing much, 

shrugging its way, March into May,  

with occasional snow and muddy feet.

a blur of days, a malaise,

of murk and purple and marsh

like an untended unmade mind.

But the strike of sun at 5:22a

puts an end to all that.

Now it's frenzy and flutter, 

force feeding tiny jaws 

from hard won scratch—

the insufferable squirrel 

having laid claim 

to the seed tray  

at first light.

the geese are flying in low over the river

and spring comes on 

chatting up finches and bluebirds

all zippety-do-dah and fare-thee-well 

on a twenty-seven degree morning

that dials up to fifty on a shiny afternoon.

the spring Maine sun fools the mind into shirtsleeves

willing the body to warm itself 

pulling in the wild blue sky

selling it with an easy nod to walkers on the road

gunning it, top down, neck scarf flying ... 

the floor heater going full blast

and it is just enough humor to form a staff 

to swing against the sea of melancholy

and stiffen the walls of memory— 

me here, wrapped in wonder

you there, leaking with uncertainty  

day six without your voice, your words, your mind. 

—were we ever "us"?  all is a wisp,

a filament of mental reckoning 

 a bed unmade, a dream unslept, silent.

what remains of the hours we knew so well? 

where's the reality of who we were?  

only in the words that poured out of us 

so easily, brilliantly, tenderly... 

our words made us real, until they didn't. 

this love doesn't run on time, apparently,

like a train on a pocket watch.

no, it lazes along 

like a train on its own track

haphazard, willynilly even,

then suddenly comes out of nowhere

and blows through a crossing of far roads, 

bearing down,

coming hard and fast and loud

across an unlikely stretch of road

that ran between the big house, on a fairway

and a small house, on a river

... fifty years having passed

in no time at all ... 

sounding exactly like a tornado

would it be too much to ask ...

would it be too great a task

to forbear the bully 

who has sullied our national conscience

from rising ever again ...

would it be too much to hope

the slope of his descent 

too slippery

for the minions to follow his miscreant mind ...

would it be too much to imagine 

the red regions of the heartland restored of heart ...

riven and reborn

without fear of differentness,

armed only with the weapons of well-being?

what will it take to shake off the lies

that bind?

how can it be too much democracy for some

who want the power of the people

to deny it by all the people?

so what do angels do after all of the hark heralding and heavenly hosting? 

after all of the fear not and beholding of glad tidings ...

dishes to wash?

cleaning up, taking out the trash?

lying down to rest their weary etheric limbs,

only to get up and do it all over again next year?

it is far more likely, 

caring for the human versions of themselves

—such as they do—

more likely they are harking it up 

constantly, loudly, insistently,

but we only hear them the one day or

one hour we are listening for them ...

and they are singing out this second

to Love on everyone, everything, everywhere, 

all the livelong day

and all through the night.

snow falling on the river

swirling on banks and trees

on fences and rocks 

on ribbons and garlands on the porch 

each tiny crystal settling to earth and home

with a sigh 

the wind finds its voice 

a shimmering powder cloud is whispered up and then resettles over the shoulders of the earth

over field and hill

over railing and porch 

shifting and molding lines with white fingers, 

rounding edges, smoothing surfaces,

a soft accord of mind and body, 

of houses and barns and baseball fields

in a grand unison of winter 

there is magic here

glinting with wonder 

pooling in mystery

desiring to be desired

there being so much Love,

whether bleakness or joy presides,

let this day be a Psalm for all of it—

a warmth of snow

on granite walls and bare birch,

and breath enough

for singing out the heart.

You are an extraordinary spark

igniting your little part of the world— 

coming here to create,

to bring energy and healing—

to push the edge of Good forward

with your own unique gifts of the spirit.

We are all the same under the skin,

each of us part of the divine flow

that moves light and being 

to become a higher version of everything—

a creative vanguard 

in a world expanding

to be more than dust

and wind and water—

to be the healing reach of Love  

in a universe of Want.

so what small truth comes this day

—piercing the heaviness of yesterday's fog 
and the foolishness of dreams ... 

comes the wholeness of being one.

yet another truth waits just beyond

—after grief bends the heart, 

and joy breaks into shards of light ... 
waits the profoundness 

of two being the wholeness 

of everything.

if hope is that thing with feathers

it crashed into my window yesterday 

falling on the porch

not moving

piercing my heart to see it so broken

heaped on its side.

went out, gingerly picked it up, 

shielded it from my hands 

with a hastily grabbed paper towel

tenderly enfolded it,

a gentle goodbye

against all odds, 

hope blinked. 

turned its tiny head  

probably to wonder at the hand of god. 

but this god couldn't fathom 

how it could possibly be that hope was still alive 

or how it would go from here

so this god sat down on the porch bench 

holding it, thinking,

wondering as well, 

slightly opening her hand ...

against all odds, hope suddenly flew up 

lighting on a porch eave

looking down at the giant still earthbound

without wings, apparently 

a lesser god, perhaps

so how might it all go from here?

against all odds   

I may yet reach safety in the rafters of heart and mind

to wonder at this larger-than-life love

that both catches me up and sets me free

to be the real me with you

 

Let it be said 

that I picked a rose the color of the clouds

of a Maine sunrise

on a November morning

for you, 

and chose a simpler life 

without causing hurt,

without the complications of a timeless love,

and went on alone 

to be a kind, less complicated woman

your tell me your dream 

without holding back

your words explode in my mind 

like a summer thistle

caught up in a gossamer wind 

of delighted laughter 

flying in all directions

to sow fields brilliant with desire

on some distant blue-eyed summer day

what is it in the beauty of this wondrous fall day that

strikes deep with a hopelessness 

and curries a wish for clouds to share my melancholy

and wants for a slashing rain to beat on these windows 

that would have so gladly looked out to watch for you

so gladly sought out only you among all others

but cannot

for want of a light 

for want of a word that you would come 

for want of a moment that should be ours

that should be here

but is not

the roses should not still be reaching out with buds 

to embrace the sun for their moment 

and the maples should not be so richly swayed 

by the breeze to shed their red joy—

the deception of this glorious blue day is 

a marvelous ruse

to welcome a new skeptic to the truth 

the evidence of love not bright 

with an eternal sun of possibilities,

but is instead an everlasting brilliance 

ushering in the midnight of never

reluctant fingers 
coaxed to move
over the keys
to draw down the music 
from somewhere
beyond mind
for comfort
a distraction
a measure of time away

yet even as chords and melody
fall into place
obediently lining out each phrase
the music itself 
mirrors a heartmind 
still vibrating with
splinters and shards 

no help there
no need to try that again
these weeks must simply play it all out
waiting to know
what comes of it

one honking goose flying south
fourteen yellow leaves on the lawn
and counting
do not a fall make.
fifteen now
a crisp day—blowy and bright
after yesterday's downpour—
sixteen
does not a fall make.
if the geese and the leaves stay put
awhile longer we can
paddle out on the Sheepscot
and pretend
eighteen
we are the very harbingers of
Indian summer.
twenty-four
twenty-eight
thirty-three
ohnevermind.
come fall.
bring it.
you know you are my favorite.

So,
do not let it be said that
meditation hath not
tangible
rewards and insights.

A guardian angel came with a name—
Tivrah—
and a gift:
a tiny toy sports car,
blue with white racing stripes.
She gently laid it in my hands.

A tiny message from the universe.
We take it that's a go.

... alrightythen.

vroom vroom

Looks like I go through all five stages of grief in a day
And then wake up
And go through all five stages all over again
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
They don’t even rhyme
They don’t even include humor or wisdom from past grief
They just march in and march out
As if on the appointed round
Postmen without mercy or guile to vary the route
Without leaving the comfort of letters to read to a wilting heart

Heartache is the consequence
Of love
Either you suffer
Or you have not loved
And have not risked
Your being for another
Or for a cause worth living out
In the desire for the highest
And best good in this life.

I risk.
I suffer.
And I wear tears like a badge
Between moments of bliss.

all of the roses are fat—
their branches laid over
with the heaviness of
unseemly exuberance

the days are long
and drunk with light—
and a passion of breeze
riffles the leaves of summer


yet i am numb to all of it
in the haze of uncertainty
of how it all comes and mostly goes
...
were it not for love's bright cast
no shadows would exist
on the walls of the heart's chamber

but here, nature's duality seems a reckoning
out of balance in its consequences—
what with a mere bright second of hope 
against the dark infinity of so much more to lose

song for this night

the long afternoon has gone tumbling to night
walk me home, love, walk me home
and the garden is done with its sensuous lure
walk me home, love, walk me home
let the mind unreel the story of day
let the heart soften memory of what has gone by ...
put your hand out
and take mine ...
walk me home.

so small are the lines and ripples in the current of time
that one must stretch the moments
to know the full measure of breathing ...
to feel the constancy and flow
of the tiny ridges of seconds
on the surface of the day as they go by,
the lines that are the shape of our moments
here ... and here ... and here ...
to hear the gentle lapping of our thoughts
coming and going and coming and going ...
it's a wonder how it all is,
and how we come to know it

Lyrics, Clarinet Solo, Rachmaninoff Sym 2, Adagio

You are my love, and song of my heart

...and the one who comes to me in velvet night
and in the morning light. 

When I dream, you hold the essence of me 

And all I am waits for you who are yet my lover to be, 

Though as two souls, we are one—

Knowing every thought

Feeling every nuance of the song we write...

The song I dream of you in the night

The song I know as you in the light

The melody of you

The one I love

i.
you are a fever
rough tongued and lapping
at the edge of my mind
all day your words insinuate themselves—
sliding between the crevices 
marking the too-often broken heart,
pushing into new seams 

stretching to hold me together,
insisting with every syllable their molten heat
bonding thought to feeling, 

promising an inflammation
of desire to come

ii.
you are a river
moving and rushing around the rocks of my defenses
bringing an aliveness in swirls and eddies
and calm pools of thought
where hope holds under the banks of lush surrender
and waits for the sweet hatches of your words
to feed the hunger that
grows and swells my spirit

iii.
you are the soft animal of my own lust
wherein a playful word lights a smile
and a laugh becomes a living thing
of wide-eyed wonder,
a wild being of nature, this thrill ... 

just now it's there on the path
running ahead of us
toward the adventure
of finding
and knowing
and mating