so it is my privilege to die
the ten thousand deaths
of love in surreal solitude

yet the ten thousand angels fly close by
an honor guard for a day that may yet come
and a surfeit of wings to secure this night

a path ahead

we did not come here for more of this passion
merely to reacquaint ourselves
with the wonderful nature of this world
not this time ... but we will need all of it
to sustain us on a new trajectory
to be the love we seek and become whole
to knead out the numbness and fear that seizes your chest
to fill my body with your intimacy
to align us with a sacred way of being

we have soul wounds to heal
with the ten thousand tears
and the softening touch of laughter

it would require all of your courage to make this path
and all of mine to help walk it
even if only for a little while
or for however long is love always

easter sunday 2020

it doesn't matter whether he lived 
or died
or broke out of the cave

miracles abound
in the everyday tomb
of self
where we break out
and begin to live
in the possibility
of the love
we are made of

slow dancing

so i take your hand and you

lead me down the garden path

of yesterday's moonlight.

in the gossamer night, our shadow selves moving

together, slowly, sinuously,

we are parentheses around a phrase

of Shos, a phrase of clever text,

a phrase of whispered things on the cel

but we move with a purpose

we didn't know until now

in a slow urgency to make it last

until time is no longer an issue

until three-quarter measures dissolve into

one long beautiful night of sighing

controlled free fall

sans meter, sine die

so here i came to be part of your story
to learn by your river the length of your cast
to shed our skin in the sweet afternoon shade
to sip the other's wine in the long shadows

had there been less fear of the moment to come   
we might have tried harder—but now we are here  
pushing out from the bank, to cast, sine die   
free falling, spread wide, entering the unknown

i believe love's arc, well cast, will never end
but oh for a day exploring your mountain
and a night to be your trout for the taking

i.
a new seam of light
strikes the heart
with blue beams
that pierce and enfold
oh no, not yet
not yet
wait
but you came in anyway
running like a ribbon of fire
down the soft tissues of my being
to the other heart of me

ii.
and so it begins
your brilliant star
of Being
shoots across the horizon
of knowing
and being known
asking too much
giving even more
seducing the mind
to believe the consequences
are worth the conviction
beguiling the heart
with a canopy of trust
but always
inevitably
leaving ...
just as these lips
were a willing accomplice
to the sacrificial yield
willing to be taken
wanting
everything

11:43 on a saturday morning in march 
hazy thrilled wonder happened

who knew love could be so precise
as to know the moment of it's leap
in the heart

only any fish that ever jumped
in any river that ever sparkled
under the magnificence of the sun's gaze

for you

for you

i.
now we know love as suffered joy
that greets pain as a noble friend
at the door
of the heart's holiest chamber.
comes day, again,
accidental next of yesterday,
foreshadow of another tomorrow,
to be crimped and cut by moments
and sweet afternoons,
unfolded and refolded
like paper dolls,
holding hands
dangling out our days
to grow old together apart,
knowing what we have
and what we have not
on balance 
in the treasury of the heart.

ii.
what is my heart but the human portal
of my singular spark,
transient of this world,
here to learn difficult lessons 

to grow
the only part of me that is real.
my spirit cheers me on
to something I can't quite discern,
longing for more grace
blessed as I am
so hopefilled and hopeless.

iii.
what was it we had in mind
between lives
when we planned this midlife transect,
where i would come to learn, again,
an unconditionality so certain
and yet so unresolved
a permeable heaven
an infinity of home
but nowhere simply to lie down
when night comes for sleep.
and the moon is too close.
there is no comfort here.
even the coyotes have each other this night
singing out their lives
beyond the trees across the river
in the dappled dark. 

no such thing as a little death
it's strong as snake
catches you by the throat
shakes everything hard
til all that's left
is the good
leaking out of you
all over the people
all over the bread you give away
all over the thirsty world

a pansy seed will come up a pansy every time

and never once turn out to be a refrigerator

but in all our brilliance as human beings, 

we are so easily plugged into living and dying 

as if that's all there is to it

seldom acknowledging 

our birthright as eternal beings,
content to be pretty as a pansy

or as cool as a tin-lined icebox

i.
nothing could be said
with people sitting there at the table...
words would have tumbled out of me

like puppies pushing open the gate,
rolling over each other,
jumping from one thing to the next

all wiggly with nonsense and joy.
but my words had to sit and stay like big dogs.

 ii.
when our eyes caught and held
it's a wonder others didn't notice
the two hotties at the table  
in a holy moment 
over forks and napkins and chicken and asparagus,

...naked to our souls

right in front of them.

iii.
time moves alongside. but we don't feel it.
it's the oddest thing.

is this how it will be to grow old with you?
moments in tablespoons,
years by the gallon?
until we're gone?
you over there, me over here?

iv.
now and again i wonder
if talking takes up too much space. 

thinking and talking get me in trouble anyway.
but how can i sacrifice the words of my heart
on wednesdays...
can there ever be such a thing
as too much love spoken
one day a week?

but if i did it--

held it all back in a burden of silent trust, 

without unpacking my feelings in nouns and verbs--
would it be sacrament enough in this life

to earn my wings to the next level?

v.
hell is weeks into years of getting by, making do,
busying up days, tossing alone nights...

but for wednesdays,
and the music of my own heart,

heaven would be too far.

perdido key

some days are more magical than others.

but i doubt the author of love sees it that way.

not that magic and wonder and awe are words too small for the divine force,

'just that i can't take it all in as a human in the linear world.

and yet, it is enough just to stand in the sand and breathe 

with the rise and fall of the waves,

and to feel all the magical wonderful awesomeness of this day 

and the pounding and crashing and starry bliss of the coming night.

the exigencies of prayer

Ants and Whales

when he said ''lift up your hearts''
was that not simply a call 

to higher consciousness?
perhaps to a higher vibration, 

setting us apart as human beings?

a little higher than the intrepid ants,
a little more than keening whales?

animals live their wild natural truths

in savage harmony with the cosmos.
we wise beings strut and blame and wonder,

conjuring rules for prayer.

we are not dissimilar to

those we disdain.
we have ant moments
trudging our lines in the queue,

living small in tiny steps 

getting over and through the hard hours.

and we have whale moments
living large in earnest conversation
casting about in our watery bellowing ...

singing ourselves home.

another well.

there's something seldom about
how the words come sideways
how they go here
and not here,

or balky

or just gush out.

what is all this fierceness about writing ... 

it is only the passionate must
as the mind meets heart,
and the relentless, pounding, 

come hither

always on the edge of epiphany

tonight it's nothin but stars up there
and yet there's thunder rumbling all around
alleluia on that
songs spring from somewhere in the night
that hold a message when i wake if i'm listenin
more alleluia

livin this life may be less than a soulbreath
but it all comes in either seconds or eternities
merciful alleluia
and most thoughts are streams that current by
with less than a minnow to show for all the fishin
alleluia, alleluia anyway

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.

there is always so much to say that can't get said 
and much more life that waits to be lived
there is time but only enough to take care of this moment
wherein i do what i can for everyone here
and yet i think and hope and pray for you where you are
and wish i could be two people
because there is more to life than just making do
and what waits is a life of passion 
that would never be on hold