New Year 2017-2018

wrapping gratitude
over the close of the year
to hold everything

together, moving
with the river flowing on
sun, shore, unknown ends

accompanied by
the fullness of all, Herself,
holding- gladly, there.

homesick written 27 December 2017

The flat
is in mourning
the air is shaken with loss
a devastated shore
after a high tide

pieces of flotsam and jetsam
in each room
exposed, awkward and terrible
in contrast to
the usual, taken for granted harmony
of waves and wind
dancing

being here
is unsettling
and
intensifying
my own
inner ocean

buffetted
by the spaces
left behind
shaped around
the retreating tide of your
absence

love

dont risk love so that
you realise how treasured
it is afterwards.

the point

at the heart of the matter
in my gut
I cannot look away
from what you've
shown me
with every choice and act
I just cannot account for it
in terms of
anything you said
and everything we felt
it makes no sense
I cannot understand
anything true in it
I cannot digest this

dying 2

the last supper came,
finally, but I couldn't
eat, too full with grief.

dying

you, my life partner,
are now dead by your own hand,
even your ghost- gone.

timing

did you think,
that after all this time,
these parts of me were still separate:

that coming inside me
was different to taking off your shoes in my lounge,
or holding my child
or reading that poem I wrote of you
or eating that winter supper.

homecoming
is not a place
and home is not
the left behind room you will have packed your stuff in.

I just don't know any more,
I'm no longer weaving threads
or waiting
for you to cast on another moment
or drop another blue loop
when you feel like it.

of course
with no one
doing
anything
at all
time still moves on, light beams casting shadows, second hand turning
nothing stops at all.

medicine for the mind

tired of your own thoughts,
become a dish washer, with mind
still, cleaned by service.

gift

I could be grumpy
waiting too long, feel alone-
but a haiku comes.

meditation two

notice the movement
away from your own living-
looking in, outside.

move closer towards
the warm, confusing, feeling
of being, inside.

let go conditions,
judgement, selfishness, and just
open your heart, Love.

meditations

body caught in time,
spirit distracted from the
truth of the moment.

glimpses into now
through the surface of the mind-
contact without touch.

growing leaves, sounds pass,
light moves slowly, silently
no grasping at life.

not to seek for love

Do you think I mean to go out there
looking for love?

When love lead me to that long night,
and has laid itself besides me all these years,
and has woven itself in time and memory
into these present moments
and opened the dark places with it's light
and faded and risen like the sun
Love wraps us together and pushes us
apart like a tide,
or breath,
or birds wings opening and closing.

faith

currents, tides and waves
breathing us between the deep
ocean and the shore.

one day at a time

one sun to moon day
of being able to love
is truly so rare,

yet in this we know
ourselves, the other and the
highest Path of Life,

like a familiar
dream, or a place from childhood-
hope arriving.

end of the year

I don't know why you choose death
while there is still life.
Maybe you don't yet know how inevitable and certain it is, in life, anyway.

Or maybe you do,
and that's a door
you want to walk through.

Whereas I
would rather invite her
in
to our home
place her feather on the altar
eat and sleep
with her-
see what dawn has to say
in the morning.

See who she brings with her, trailing in shadow.

But one person does not
hold a relationship together
keep comings and goings at bay
attend the hearth
or hold up the walls of a house.

That kind of loneliness
was already born from fear and heart-wounds
stayed too long
and left it's mark.

Maybe your invocation is the deepest wisdom
and I'm
a scared novice
looking for colour
at midnight,
when the moon is full and risen
and dreaming of kissing the sun.

#Decemberpoetrychallenge word: map

There is no map I
know of to your arriving
safely home again.

And no map that can
soften storms and  lift doldrums
when ocean crossing.

Maps are for those who
seek other people's lands, not
for us, travellers.