Reminder

Hands stained

with ink, I found a key.

The world is singing itself

as you,

as me.

With heart clearing,

like a gasp

I understand:

to always speak

with an open heart.

The world becomes one

as a weight lifts,

my vision cleared.

Oh how too often

I forget

how to say “Thank you”

and take the world to heart.

A Myth the Heart Can Create

Sweetness caresses my broken face, and the moment the muse sang brightly shines upon the day. But my mind, it is in a daze, as if stumbling upon the new world ablaze, the ramblings of giants are coming to proclaim:

            Rue the day you gave up your heart.

            Night comes for all.

Still, I heard the stars, in their gentle course, whispering,

so beautifully, so softly,

it made me wonder:

are they really so gentle?

Rational mind collapsed the mystery, and only gas and explosions remained.

But that silver belt came out, like Mother Earth Herself was singingus all to sleep, and the words of the mind mattered less to me than the myth the heart could create.

So if ever daylight obscures imagination, I remember the cover of her embrace, and the way the shine of her belt melted like grace across my face, infusing my eyes with a sight so divine, so sublime, that my heart gave chase to the dream of the sky, as if we could fly.

And soar we did, through midnight sky, mossy around my body like forest in spring, and the stars—they did not burn but embraced. And so I fell and flew and spun around, this spacious place, that same melted grace.

Expanded to infinity, there was nowhere my heart could not chase. And so every night now, I wrap myself in a starlit sky and dream a dream that the heart can fly—and carry it away, to You.

I think they called it prayer, but I don’t fancy names like that. You can’t encapsulate it. It can only be felt, and lived, how that wish expands and covers the night, guiding your heart home.

To the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars.

The Earth, the Wind, and the Sea.

And, come light, if you still fly away past the vast blue day, they say your heart will stay that way.

So when sweetness comes to caress, and you feel yourself breaking,

Give in.

Become sky.

Be free.

Pinnacles and Paradox

As I lay down beneath the moon anew, a sudden wave of knowing floods into my heart:

We are not the pinnacle of existence.

What would such a thing even mean?

How could we be at the top of a sphere

spinning in directionless space?

From that shattered view we call humility, we may perceive a wordless beauty hidden deep within our nature; may see the tragedy of our limits, juxtaposed against the clear background of that which allows for all things to be.

To be human is to be messy and filled with error. But what a beautiful, humble, and kind error it may be. Painstakingly wrought, our failures are what break us open to the perfection of things, just as they are.

For what good is a perfect perfection?

What use is rationality divorced from the heart?

If it has not love…

If it has not love…

No. Give me that imperfect perfection. Give me the perfection that comes amid my pain, in between the whips and cracks of lightning that life throws down.

That perfection that lives on in me as my breath, though every stormy wall tries to keep it from me, every ocean wave and every mountain try to crash down around me and impede my progress.

That perfection that lives on in me. As a fire. As a hope. As a defiant cry amidst the waning light.

Or perhaps that light is dawning. Perhaps the light lives on in me, as my fire, my hope, my own increasing light.

Give me that perfection that rises in my heart when this imperfect world has broken me open.

Do you know the faded memory of dawn that I speak of?

The one you only barely perceive with the eyes, but rather a concentrated warmth within your chest makes its tremulous unfolding clear and radiant.

It speaks of beauty, and then tells you all such beauty fades, then it reveals how even such a fading is beautiful;

such a pain is worthwhile.

Do not let that stop your crying out. Nor your fire, nor your hope. Nor your hands raising up toward the heavens, directionless in space as we freefall into dark, then light, and then rise up again to see that we are flying.

Remember, always remember:

If we have not love…

If wee have not love…

So have love.

Have love!

Come Home

I asked my voice: “Where have you gone?”

And it responded in images the mind could never decipher, a torrent cascading through my heart.

Yet still, a shadow;

the wet and weeded

garden grows,

weary.

Who was it that said Crow is ugly?

From where do such thoughts spring?

You think you must walk alone.

In the winter,

you think you are.

But if you will trust

your heart more

than the clench

in your gut, you will know.

Trust your heart.

It’s Image,

makes the world:

The fallen color

of autumn, transparent.

Barren

upon the ground,

the hearth,

warmth

is retreating,

into Silence:

a song

of the life that

springs

from falling away.

Will you rise

to meet it,

I wonder?

This is your life,

after all:

your one and only

true love.

What sort

of Dream

will you Dream

into Being?

Bright, vivid, resounding

Voices are calling to you:

Where have you gone?

Come home,

come home.

Revolution of the Fading Light

(for Autumn)

Light shimmering 

down through leaves:

each moment is the start

of the rest

of your life.

Can you feel the tempering 

of this light fading 

into autumn like embers;

giving way to 

pristine darkness?

No, I say.

Don’t let it fade.

Take it in,

to your depths,

where the holiest of holy 

resides.

Like a whispered hope,

in this, 

your darkest 

of hours.

And if you cannot take it in,

reach out your hand

in your despair.

Feel the full force 

of a thousand angels coursing 

from the sun into your skin,

your veins,

winding through

sinew and marrow

revealing the radiance

of your spirit.

If not even this,

turn to me and open;

let the faded tears of memory

spark your heart to Remembrance.

We will not let 

this world forget the weight of 

love

and its responsibility;

No, we will remember 

our tender, 

sacred hearts.

Crying Out

Here I lay,

beneath the beating Sun 

aglow. Many a weary heart 

has been made

here; a confluence 

of sweat and tears.

Did you know:

you do not have to do anything

to deserve. Love

is given freely—

in every fluid moment, the universe

is born.

But I do not think one ever truly knows,

until their loved one’s face is contorted

in a pain you can do nothing about. 

Their every feature

becoming your own 

heart’s immeasurable joy and

unimaginable sorrow.

No, I do not think we know.

We forget, with too much ease,

the drop of dew in the morning,

the moment the sun fades 

beyond the mountaintop, the ocean—

All of this is fleeting. 

So what of beauty?

What of Her endless contours?

The way the river shapes 

Her mouth and eyes.

Yes, she is smiling now.

And love is all around,

In a twisted lip and a slipped hand,

A misspoken word 

A saddened smile.

Because, you know:

all of this is 

fleeting,

all of this is Beauty. 

Heartstorm // Angelsong

Is this the calm 

before the storm, I asked?

And then, an angel 

kissed my lips, so sweet 

and forceful like I was 

pressed underneath the weight of fate 

and stars turning above

my softly opening heart.

No, perhaps I shouldn’t ask,

should remain unknowing,

like the sun, waiting to pierce

the veil of a clouded grey sky.

You see,

every heart is terrifying—

not the angel’s repose—

for the heart is vaster, wider

than the circles that form their lips.

More intimate, unknowing,

crying out in sound 

upon beckoning sound,

like waves eroding 

the rocks gathered ‘round.

There are no winners

in love, said the angel, 

its lips departing from my own.

its storms erode you,

change you,

leave you 

open 

like a child.

And when the angel had gone

love echoed in my heart 

like waves smashing 

against stable rock—

is this trust 

or

acceptance?

In the end, the vast sea 

carries everything away.

But right now, in this life, 

an angel

kissed my lips; 

and my heart, like a storm

broke open into song.

Chiaroscuro, Tao Puro

Have you ever been so tired

that the bird’s chirping 

reverberates

through the cavern of your heart?

They call it surrender,

but I don’t know

who they are

or why they are here.

I just listen

to the wind

blowing, softly

through the trees.

---

TAO PURO

I even remember how it felt, on a hot day in July, biking alongside the river—always moving, yet looking so still—when it dawned upon me that my heart was revealing itself to the world in the form of a response; the world called to me, and my heart sang in verse. 

What more is there than this?

Perhaps it is true that this is our simple, human life; Our response, our initiation. 

What am I trying to say? What song is my heart singing? I must listen. And as I do, I find:

I don’t really know. That’s, at least, the very first thing I am saying. 

Maybe I’m saying that our grief at the state of the world is our heart’s response to the cruelty of our greed?

That our endless search for distraction is the fear of the change we are asked to make, by none other than our own heart, our soul? 

I’m saying all of these things, surely. 

But I am also speaking of gratitude. And joy. And the way the sunlight trickles through the cedar trees. 

Don’t you see?

We are the mystery. 

Not one we can solve through power or ideology. Not one we can win through monetary gain or the trivial pursuit of fame. Not even one that can be obsessed upon and shoved down others’ throats through concepts like diversity or authenticity, which only have power when completely lived. 

Mystery beyond mystery. 

The one we cannot know. 

And in my heart, there is a vision: I long to hold the wounded child of the world, and let our tears be like holy water, washing away all hurts and wrongs. And the wounded child in me, too, would come out. As would yours. And his. And hers. And all those in power who do not believe in love because they have never known it. 

The weeping would cause a flood—of sacred water forming an ocean—and the Earth would be made anew. 

For our tears are holy water, no matter when or why they are shed. And each of us is hurt, in some way, by this mystery of life. 

For all our posturing, we are still small, soft creatures longing for a bit of love in a wild world. And we are the ones to create it. 

As far as visions go, I admit that it is idealistic. 

But how else does love win?

Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is far more important than knowledge.”

I happen to agree.

And so we dream our love to life, and take joy in the creation. 

CHIAROSCURO

But what of perfection?

asked my old and restless soul.

In our long and aimless hunt, we have made an enemy of the real and instead sought our own vain imaginings. 

But as it is said, when you stop aiming to be perfect, you are finally able to be good. 

I have spent long years aiming for the shores across the endless sea. And it is only lately that I see the futility of my search.

Collectively, are we any better? Are we not merely avoiding the discomfort of existence in an attempt to reach perfection? And slowly destroying ourselves because of it, losing our way like a ship at sea that cannot find the lighthouse’s guidance. 

Because we still must have an aim. And high ideals are not mere fancy. Rather, our expectation that we must invariably succeed in reaching them is what drags us down. 

So when I speak of grief, I think I am also speaking of the grief that we must embrace when we let our grasping at perfection die. 

For if perfection does exist, it is in our complete and total surrender to the way the wind blows and tousles our hair, to the way that mistakes and unintended changes lead to beautiful outcomes, along with tragedy.

I have spent long years aiming for the shores beyond the endless sea. 

Only now, beside a campfire, with the stars above as my guide, do I realize the sea to cross was always the distance between my longing, and my love.

CLARA CONIUNCTIONIS

Don’t turn away, 

from the shaded veil of day. 

And don’t hide your eyes, 

like a beggar to mine. 

Rather, dance

with me,

with this world 

of our tears and our 

clear imaginings. 

For surely, depth is that calling of our hearts to imagine a world that is more beautiful than the one in which we live, for it sees the beauty hidden in the way things are. 

And it is only through seeing beauty that it is created.

When we look back upon our lives, we see the invisible hand of fate—if you so choose to call it—and how it moves our spirit through its layers…

upon layers, upon sand and silt and ash; spinning through the clay of our heart that breathes beneath bare feet: the soil of the Earth herself.

And a soft voice begins to speak to you, reminding you of your sacred purpose here: to love and be loved. Something within you resonates with the vision it whispers, of a love beyond time. 

The fire, it rises within you. Your life, a vas; its trials, your fertile soil. 

No, don’t turn away. Don’t close your eyes. Your ideals and the dreaded mirror of reality—they both need you, your love: your wounded song that heals the hurts you can never heal within yourself. 

We dance between these poles, as if caught between two cosmic forces we cannot see but feel at every step within the movement. 

You see? The path lies in the step you take, not the direction in which you take it. 

Be where your feet are. 

In love with life, singing beauty into the world, at once mysterious and immanent, at once practical and intangible. 

And when, one day, you hear that voice and reach out your hand to feel the weight of its vision, you will grasp another’s. 

The clouds will welcome you, as they have been for ages, 

and the sky will dance with you, 

with this world,

of your tears and your

clear imaginings. 

My heart finds the shape

My heart finds the shape 

of water 

and sky becomes sunlight—

becomes you—

your face, revealing 

the weight of all your tears: 

a signal of love

for the life you hold dear.

Stand, darling, 

tall.

By this tree, and sing.

Of the union in your love,

and your longing

to be free.

And come, child, 

here.

Up, on my shoulders,

the sky is your Mother;

your joy—the light.

And your laughter

is my Grace.

And for your heart

is my Fight.

So steady, my hand

supported by Earth:

send a symbol of love—

signals of tears.

Upon this vast, terrible—

beautiful—World,

our hearts find the shape

of water and wind:

infinite, our love 

for each other.

Knight and King

Said the Knight to the King:

“And what if I were to tell you, O Great Ruler, that the Symbol of War is Yourself and that all else falls into Void and Darkness lest you wage Yourself against the World that is Truth?”

And the King had no response but sat a while in contemplation, for there was a Song outside the halls of the court that lighted upon his ears and made the world shine with brightness he had not before seen. And it was Clear to him that what the Knight said was True and that he was the Symbol of War and that the War was Himself.

So he set down his crown beside the throne of forgotten tomorrows and danced his way through the Court of Masks and heard the hissing of Vipers all around but did not Fear for fear was Illusion.

And coming upon the Doorway, he paused for a moment, and Silence was audible, and Nothing was tangible. And it freed his steps and heart and mind, and like one feels after cleansing themselves in a great river he leapt across the threshold and entered into the world where flowers blossom on withered trees and laughter is hidden in tall reeds and willows. 

And the Knight still stands beside the Throne, guarding the Crown that rests there and he says unto the silence:

“Lest you Awaken into Sound, the Empty Throne exists to show you the way to Peace. But do not think it is Symbol or mere Phantasy, for it is Realer than You take yourself to be, and will stand on the top of the Mountain of the World for a good long while after all has returned to Void, patiently awaiting its Crownless King.”

Blessed Hands

I

Take me, now,

the blessed hand of maturity,

ravaging the field

where I was borne.

So you lift me.

Up, into cold air.

And this vision, wide,

cannot contain you.

We have lost 

our forms

seas of clouds 

can no longer hold us.

I am falling

through them into you

where inside becomes

a dimmed holy light.

Often, I cannot tell

Who writes? Who speaks?

A blue sky, clear as dawn

where dizzying time began.

And if I fell,

would these bones shatter?

You see, it scares me—

our human fragility.

But the trees bend

hands in prayer 

to the clouds above 

and this biting air.

And we soften—blue, 

shades of green embrace us.

A shield.

You said—you promised,

maturity begets courage.

Why did you not tell me,

how much it takes away?

II

The masquerading hands

falling through the cracks 

in time. You’ll see the signs—

not even God knows.

Perhaps they’ll grasp you

from in between, where you live,

half alive, half unknowing,

like a song not finished.

The chorus of angels 

will try to sing your heart

to completion’s rest.

But the ground!—it aches transparent.

As every day swallows, 

every night reveals

what kept hidden, the light, 

those hands can never touch.

Still,

the mountains want to speak 

with you. 

But the light 

covers their mouths.

You could never grasp it.

The night, the stars,

a tree, a bird,

a song 

caught 

in your lover’s throat 

like the sun

waiting to be born.

Smoke—

it rises, a signal, 

clears your heart, pulled

toward the ocean 

where it mingles

with water and salt—

your tears, the sea.

It is pulled by you.

Your longing, resonant with a world

where you finally grasp

another hand.

III

Even the trees have stories.

But do the lights 

have shadows?

A cloud I cannot taste;

I want something 

my teeth can bite into.

But perhaps reality evades

our constant flailing attempts

to make it something solid.

We fall through the trees

and into shadow’s light,

as if we were the clouds

Once—We were the Sun, all light

Blazing before, the earth

tried to hold us down.

We will never hold anything 

except the love we give each other,

these blessed hands of ours.

Shadowdance

A noble-hearted fool 

dances with his shadow at dawn, 

and the Sun comes 

upon the mountainside, aglowing.

Like a plant that grows 

from a seed, he reaches upward 

toward the dawn 

that resonates through time.

He knows that he cannot know, 

and he remembers 

what it means to forget. 

And so love,

Say the wise.

Be patient,

and be kind.

Love each other 

as your own. 

For there is no high,

No low or alone. 

Isn’t it funny?

Our strange fate:

To love and not know

We are what we seek.

My shadow, he sits

beside me at night.

‘Round the hearth, the fire,

the cosmic dance of life.