The Membrane

Am I not

Myself, only half a figure of a sort,

A figure half-seen, or seen for a moment, a man

Of the mind, an apparition apparelled in

Apparels of such lightest look that a turn

Of my shoulder and quickly, too quickly, I am gone?”

— Wallace Stevens, “Angel Surrounded by Paysans”

What is this barrier
Between you and the world?
Between you and the words?

You and love?
Break through it, the way
You always have. A little push.

A little effort. A little something.
Just keep typing.
Let the wriggling out of the shell

Occur, occur, occur.
Let the words cast spells — good ones —
And do the work.

You are halved somehow
In the din of living,
Shaved down a bit,

A survivor of sorts
In the everyday:
Get up, shave, shower,

And enter the possibility.
My mind. The world.
My conception versus my perception.

On that hanging limb,
You rebuild reality.
No leaves adorn it.

And winds blow,
But on that thin precipice,
In that instance, and in this one,

The mind creates
Or destroys.
You be the judge.

Autumn

What sweater to wear today,

In the din of a Tuesday?

This cool air. This warm sun.

This gentle breeze.

All bliss.

All echoes of sentimentality.

All done.

What will become of the season?

Caterwaul through it and bivouac in it.

The World Can Be Terrifying

The world can be terrifying. I need more courage.

Driving in a car is terrifying. Flying is terrifying.

I am trying. I am trying. I am trying. I am trying.

I need more courage. Who will give it to me?

Planes crash. Cars collide. Bad cells divide.

How could I have gone so long like this,

Unaware, undisciplined, making bad decisions?
The world can be terrifying. I need more courage.

There is the grinding of steel and glitter of light
On the highway tonight, coming to and fro,
Fading and arriving in imperceptible moments.
Is this symphony or chaos waiting to happen?

Dear Soul ...

I know you are there,

Silent, elegant, beautiful, still.

I want to get nearer to you,

And feel you close,

Gather you up

In my arms.

You warm me like no other.

I want to draw you in.

I am compelled, pulled,

To travel dreamily

In your orbit.

Some Days

Boil with struggle.

It is all in the mind.

Other days flow like easy rivers.

It is all in the mind.

What makes the difference?

It is all in the mind.

What Love Is

It owns energy 
While producing it.
It grounds you to 
The good Earth.

You feel it in your marrow.

It has a vision, gives life,

And moves you and all things.

Objects get set in motion.

Events unfold,
Flutter in harmony.

Something shifts, 
Dear universe,

When you look 
Into her eyes.

Love Arrives

On a morning breeze,

When you least expect it,

Turning days, hours, and moments

Into here and now.

Time elapsed synchronizes

With time forward.

The road ahead 

Remains the road home.

You could not dream a better dream —

Arriving on this sun-kissed day,

Blending light and air,

Body and soul,

Giving hope and joy,

To nourish the spirit.

We will, in time, ease

Into this love, this life,

Within us,

Between us,
Around us.

Trees. God. Water.

Three elements,

with Him (or Her) in the middle.

Rise up and sink down,

but stride the middle way.

Seek what you seek.

Find it in friend or foe,

blessed, blessed again.

Not dying, but rising up, up, up,

seeing the infinity in the sky,
in the ripple of wind over water,

and Him (or Her) between,

pulling, pushing, reaching,

filtering light, in the

sun above and pool below.

Flat-Lined

It is all an energy thing,

As I am wont to say,

And when the bucket

Goes to the well,

And comes up with mud

What does that mean?

You pull out what you put in.

If you offer hmmm and zzzzz,
That is what you get.

Houses We Once Knew

"The houses are all gone under the sea." — T.S. Eliot

We moved through those rooms,
Leaving our fingerprints on the air,
Exhaling our hopeful spirits into those walls,
Eagerly absorbed,
Just passing through,
Though they remain.
Memory offers a window
With a finer view,
From a room in need
Of no renovation,
Where laughter and delight commingle
With tears and disappointments.
Sweetly, though,
We never left that
Bright afternoon,
Brimming with hope,
As we backed
Out of the drive
For the last time.

Spring Evening Song

Soft might capture it
though nothing
can articulate
where silk air
intersects with
kaleidoscopic light
atomized in mist
nature healing swirling
trying its best
daffodils trees shrubs
birds squirrels
rising up or scattering
or perhaps celebrating
some sacred pact
delivering on a promise
of earth and sky
returning from
a walk to the sea
with the day's final rays
and waves behind
clawing the coast
catching again
the peeper chorus'
short-lived ancient
song of praise

My Valentine to Creation

Something about the tangible itself,
Every inch and speck of it —
From the oak tree on the corner
Bearing fattening buds to the
People milling about in the soft,
Yellow light of their homes —
That just cries out for praise.
How exquisite is the world
And everything in it, if we look,
And are at rest and without
Internal strife or external threat.
How remarkable is mere breath tonight
And the dog on the leash
Sniffing tall snowbanks to
Decipher a dog code
We will never know.
How beautiful are all the people
We love and have loved — in those
Moments when we locked eyes
And smiled knowingly
At the bliss of existence.
How lucky have I been to connect
And make people laugh and cry
And think and wonder.
And they have done the same for me —
In ways deep and true.
I love them all.
How blessed it is to have moved
About this planet to far-flung places
To experience the differences
In cultures and landscapes.
How essentially good and true it is
To know God personally, to have
That awareness of a divine force
Behind everything, pulsing in
Your fingertips as well as in the stars,
Pressing out with an undeniable,
Ever-expanding affirmation that love
Infuses all things, all creation,
That faith is humming in the
March evening air tonight,
That somehow all is not lost and
Everything comes together harmoniously,
That love endures all eternity, all tragedy,
All pain, all unknowable boundaries ...
Lift up my heart and soul to sing praise —
I offer myself utterly and completely to you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

In An Instant

all seems to turn around

like you never planned it

those fears that cropped up

wash under the coral reef

or silt under the forest floor

those dark clouds replaced

by the sunshine that had

glowed up there all along

that bare branch budding out

cliché and hokey but true

we lie to ourselves

far too much for our own good

and the lesson is to

soldier on as it were
and minimize your mistakes

Sear

Enough.

Uncle.

You won.

I get it.

Point taken.

Purify me.

Burn out

My soul's
Impurities
In your crucible.
Disconnect me.

Hollow me out.

I am a smoldering

Shell of self.
Still, I cry for mercy.

The Snowflake

Just one — take your pick.
No two alike, they say.
Crystallized thousands of
Feet up in numbers
Defying any calculation,
Each a solitary star
Etched in ice —
A glittering, symmetrical,
Fragile masterpiece
Of precision and elegance.
Just one — conceived
In cloud, blown sideways,
Buffetted, battered, twirling,
Dropping in the dark
Over ocean, field, and forest.
Just one — turn skyward,
Open wide, and let it
Hit your tongue
With a crisp hiss.

It's Not My World

"All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?"
—T.S. Eliot, "Journey of the Magi"

Never was,
Though I act as if.
I don't matter fully
In the great scheme.
One soul.
One heartbeat.
One life.
You love as best you can.
You attempt to offer a salve,
Some goodness, in the paucity
Of your humanness.
But you are not the world,
Though many days it
Feels that way.
Never was.
Get it line, I say,
With the march of Time.
Ten-feet tall and bullet-proof:
As if!
What I do have:
Memories varied and deep —
And life and life and life ...

Stone. Cold. Sober.

I - Stone

Flecked. Fissured. Fickle.
Toughen my toes
By tickling them.
Something afoot,
Heel it.
Crack the code
Of the millennia,
Drop by drop,
A yoke around
Your neck.
Swim, don't sink.
Begin. Believe. Beware.
Turn your sharp angles
Skyward and open
Your stony heart
To chisel the infinite air.

II - Cold

Staccato. Stasis. Stuck.
Edges mostly submerged,
Beyond your ken and patience
To linger here struck
By a dumb block,
Bottom-heavy,
With an alarmingly gargantuan
Base, deaf and mute and still.
But some days beautiful
at rest, the part exposed,
Carved a perfect dull square,
Yet split and splintered,
The same immovable snooze.

III - Sober

No matter.
Long after you are gone,
Night and day, hot and cold,
You will make a pile of dust by then.
And the stone will still stand.
You caught it here, though,
In the roughest of edges.
You talked of the rock.
The rock remains.
You roll on.

Half and Half

Time ticks out moments,
Minutes, hours, days, years —
If we are fortunate.

Many do not get this far,
And the obvious seems trite,
But triteness is Truth today.

To be here at all is a blessing,
At the half-century mark,
Still breathing this icy air.

If I could utter any wisdom at all,
And that is questionable,
It might be this:

Place your life before you like an altar
And give praise, leaving offerings
Of love and kindness.

And when you fail, and you will,
Return to that altar, knowing that
Every moment can shift toward love.

Every chance you get, lose yourself
In love and hope and service.
Do not fritter away precious time.

By our very humanness, we remain halved,
Fifty-percent to fullness, but Divinity
Might just help close that gap.

We are incomplete for good reason —
It allows for that striving to propel
Us along toward unattainable perfection.

As Eliot wrote, the way forward
Is the way back, and the future
Is a faded song, a flower pressed

Between the pages of a book
That we have not opened
But that was written for us.

I think of being five years old,
Close to God without knowing it,
And returning there in spirit.

This world oozes with negation,
Find those who are additive,
The rest are just dross.

Live by that formula, that sweet
Algorithm of space and time —
Share a smile, give a hug, keep loving.

When you are halved,
Seek to be whole —
At all costs, do not subtract.

When the glass is half full,
I am happy to report,
You can quench your thirst.

Between Two Christmas Trees

"Here are your waters and your watering place.

Drink and be whole again beyond confusion."

—from Robert Frost's "Directive"

I had seen the other,

Desiccant, brown,

Early on, in the corner,

Dropping needles,

When I first met you.

I thought I could add

Some life to the place,

And I believe, in time,

I did in my own way.

Joy happened and laughter

And loving, but perhaps

I gushed and watered

Too much

For your dry tastes.

I thought you liked it,

But it needled you

In the end, and I sucked

Up too much energy, I suppose.

I cut down the next one,

The three of us with such

Potential picking it out

On a rise in a beautiful

Spot to the west of the ocean.

And the day felt OK,

Although lacking in holiday spirit
And withering for some time.

No water to keep things green.

I was told to keep my words

To myself (as if I ever could)

And to keep my hands to myself

(as if I ever could).

And the needles started to drop.

Larger, ancient forces astir,

Inevitable and dark,

A basic ingredient
Of life missing.

By then, I felt more like

A hired hand, henpecked,

18 years married

In just 11 months to the day,

Snapped at and corrected

With alarming regularity.

And perhaps that is my

Own misgiving,

When I should have been

Singing thanksgivings.

The tree will stand there, 

Silent sentry, sheltering
Those gifts that attempt
To paper over everything

That life lacks — and
Drop its needles, before 
Being dragged

To the curb —
With the rest.

Digital Divide

Ha, we text.

That’s the way it feels:

As if in a dream,

Like nothing existed

At all, the petering out,

The flick on the nose

From the Universe.

Ho-hum, we text.

The weakest points

Remain from the git-go,
One surmises.

OK, we text.
And so it happens —

Little lives

Passed over,

Bad blood running

Through hearts.

Ugh, we text.
I have to ask myself

— and this shakes me —

Why do I not feel

The purifying change?
Maybe next time
(...)

January Sunrise

A moment ago,

The sky switched

To something else:

From a muted gray cloud flock

Into a single bird ablaze,

With a star burning its edges.

The show never lasts long,

Familiar in its glory,

This brief drama

Lifting the curtain
From dawn to day.

The Cookie Jar

Restless in his soul

Going down dead-ends

Traveling highways north and south

On the run to find 

Where he had begun

No matter which road he followed

He could not locate what he lost

And was trying to find it

Looking in flea markets 

And second-hand stores

Because money was tight

It would take time

He knew

To bring it back

One day he 

Spotted it on a shelf

No worse for the wear

He understood 

What it meant

Took it to his house

Placed it on the counter

He knew his daughters' hands

Would one day touch

Its smooth ceramic lid

And they did