new places

What is a traveler if not a lover, who keeps falling in love?

Who opens their heart, asking what do you want from me tree, sky, icy cityscape? How did you come to be here, with me, and what does it mean?

The Beloved, the love song of the senses, a beauty waiting for worshippers. 

roots and wings

This is a poem about a piano.

A piano that arrived late,

And perfectly on time.

A piano carrying root energy that settled into my home like a long lost friend- on the day I was rushing across town, between clients, 

at the last minute,

To fetch my visa.

A visa that will take me, on giant grey wings,

Further than I have ever been before.

Last night,

when I closed the packed case,

I found myself whispering,

I'm going to Canada, Mom.

And as I write this, I am sad with longing for her. The grief lifts thoughts and memories from my heart.

And I remember, that her piano books are buried in a sealed box of memories, deep in a cupboard,

that 20 years later I still can't open.

And I remember that I never once heard her play.

That we had no piano.

That lessons came for me, too far into the shame years, to instill any skill.

This is a poem about a piano. A piano that arrived today as I fly to Canada.

In and Through

We spliral together

A sacrament

An offering

One with The Beloved

In pure peace and truth

On our knees

Or lost completely

Worshipping 

Worshipping

Worshipping

The broken temple

Scattered into every heart

Seeded into liberation

Restored and Whole.

building blocks 24 July 22

A day of quiet connection

feet on the floor

and the gentle breathing of waves on shore 

poetry and presence

And still something out of balance,

satisfaction far off and murky,

satiation is a memory 

a mystery in this moment 

Nothing out of place, exactly.

just an out of sync sense 

unsettled though at home

Giving up is not the same as surrender.

They are not nearly the same. And one is suffering. The other is pure bliss. 

10 June haiku

You may believe Moon's

love less constant than Sun but,

dark or light, she spins.

church

We worship differently;

The mother song in silence and joy,

The key to power in movement and forgetting.

We are siblings held between sky and earth. First born or last. And however we worship: seeking Life or Death: we will know both. 

Apart from worship, it is our freedom also made materially in difference. And what we are willing to sacrifice to have it. 

Neither of us is fully sovereign. No matter how we live our comings and goings. Our births are gifts and our deaths are a reckoning. Both beyond us and our timid adventures.

need

Only harmony,

Moon, sound, light, breath, perfect touch

is enough right now.

loving you

How I love you from afar:

In moonlight and at dawn

With candle magic and prayer

Parcels of silence wrapping fragile gifts

And rooting my everything into the earth

Where treasure is buried and seeds are birthed.

In devotion,

Touching the sky

And unweaving memory where I can.

something else

I have to do something

run or rage

Or maybe just be held

Something that opens like a key

Or drops like a bucket into the well

Something tender

Something wild

Something like spring or the sweetest river in love with the earth it carries to its dissolution

I would, if I could

Be at the altar right now

Surrendered and free

Waiting for the sunrise,

Clouds and rain 

response to the call

morning prayers

What you wanted from me was in my heart,

even if you had no name

to call That which leans in, looks, and loves.

I've been lonely for it,

That attending presence,

That offers itself unafraid, lingering close.

I've been looking for it,

That reflecting gaze,

That waits expectantly, to breathe me- slowly- in.

Can you feel that fragrance of prayer in the air?

That hue of beauty touching us in first light,

And hope.

vows

The pull between the glamour and the beauty

The facade and the source

What are you devoted to?

Where are your roots and your truth?

Caught between fantasy and desire

The fast burning flame and the heat

Who do you answer to?

Where is your allegiance?

You can take in the whole world

And you could touch the centre

You can be a blessing

You are not your own.

Paper Cuts

What happens now

If I won't let you bully me

What is the cost

And how do I know

Who will pay

And where are you drawing the currency from?

Whose future is draining into the

bottomless pit

Of your wound

Your weapons

Your weary capitulation 

Where is possible to find

A stance on solid ground 

Outside the grooves and currents

Of your history

And mine

A standing place

Of something better than before

The sanctuary you dreamed 

Little and alone 

And always out of reach

karma

fated force majeure
but no medicine, or food,

for the hungry ghosts.

Momentary

Sometimes it's a poem, a tiny blossom or the feel of the wind on skin,
that lands gently and turns the key:
is this what beauty is for?

It makes me one mind, or two,

and both ways I fall into something bigger than me,

that feels like home but also like the first, quick mile on the open road.

Sometimes it's a mood, or the scent of a place I'm likely never to go,

that unsettles me, suddenly, and restlessness blooms,

an invitation and an inner shadow.

I forget peace, or hope,

and everything is a sharp intrusion, a sinister straight jacket,

like handcuffs pulling tighter in the struggle.

I'm no longer breathing with ease-

a cat up a tree,

a dazed bird,

a fish in a talon; gasping.

Can love ever- truly- run out?

Has it ever not been there,

pulse of moon light, spark of heart beat- folding over the seasons year after year.

As ever, when I stop to look, there is something

to see and feel

and

worship or mourn- a full cup, this life.

A full cup. 

that small, great round

Currents of time move,
molecules of memory 
moments crystallised,

questions and answers

moving over a lifetime,

mystery and faith,

turning on the wheel,

moon-and-sun clock and star time,

spiralling our lives,

patterning, like rain,

like the oceans- like valleys,

being born through death.

re membering

Maybe I wasn't shorn, and sent out, vulnerable and exposed

Maybe,  maybe, there was another silent gift, chosen by you, for me. Maybe you saw me. Saw something of me and let me have it. Despite the pain.

And unfortunately, without language.

And maybe you had found it for yourself and found a way to share it with me.

communion

Green breathed into my heart

Home again, and for the first time.

The mystery, made flesh

Logos the bread

And the fruit of the vine

Soul to soul.