Tag Archives for poem

patience

patience was the message given
the telling of which made me laugh
out loud
in the middle of ceremony!
– me –
– patience –
what a warrior gauntlet thrown!
I did not suspect this place
would be the master of it
though,
the city fastness and hustle
cannot hold long in
the grip of
this inexorable
forest languor
slowly
steadily
incrementally
I ease
into this pocket
of natural rhythm
of tree-edged sky
of inter-woven overlapping webs
of deep round breaths
of oscillations unwinding
the enduring dance
quiet
quieting
quieter still
I will need to
become
to master this teaching,
oh!
a good long lesson
this will be!

Fortune: snake, dragonfly, coyote, mouse

change is coming

a wild shift

full of power
that will shake the very core of you

fly through the illusions you have built
in idleness and ineffective defense

let go of your hiding away and your smallness

lay it down,
lovingly,
front and center,
as an offering to that past life
that no longer serves you

know yourself full and shining with all the incandescent fire of your truest being

it is time to share your gifts

For A, For Everyone

My dear friend,

I want you to wake up in the morning and wrap your arms around your body and give it thanks for all that it does in carrying you through this life. Love it for how selflessly it enables you to be here in this world. 

I want you to stand in front of the mirror and look yourself in the eyes and say I love you. I love you. I love you, until you believe it. 

And then keep saying it. Everyday. 

I see you so often calling out to the whole world to love you, to validate you, but no one else can do that for you but you. 

No one else can do that for you but you. 

You can do this. 

You are immeasurable and I long to see you love yourself as only you are capable of. 

Love,

K

Barcelona in Berlin 

you’re walking home down the cold dark street and as you pass the place on the corner you hear the rapid arpeggios being skillfully drawn from the guitar and stop mesmerized by the skill of the musician and the passionate voice of the chords, and the bar man sees you through the window and beckons at you with a chiding grin on his face to enter and be greeted inside with warm candlelight and more open smiles and the long silky ears of a big sweet basset hound and exuberant Barcelona “tttthhhhssss” sliding through the air and the Spanish ladies that confidently take the floor with sultry eyes and languid hands and encourage you out to join them in smooth hips rolls and graceful flourishes and joyful appreciation of tempestuous music and then names are shared and compliments and teasing woven through talk of San Francisco and Barcelona and Berlin and change and age and your bed calls again again and you leave promising to return tomorrow, and you will, because there’s magic in the night here and it blossoms with glowing delight in cozy little pockets just waiting for you and to be there.

The train

I arrive in this day in it’s beginning.
My eyes open in this day in this land
before you have laid your heads down
to sleep yesterday, my friends.

We are cresting the wave of this dawn
in a slow-rolling train
fueled by the back-breaking sawahs,
the burning of plastic-filled trash,
the rivers choked with refuse,
the dishonorable care of animals,
the shouting loudspeakers to God,
the staticky vibrations of places
never empty of people.

My friends,
the veil of wealth is clouding our eyes.
We think we are at the forefront of the wave,
but in reality
we are at the rear of the train
being propelled forward by the advancing heaviness of multitudes.

We cannot reach the new day without encompassing all of this in love.

I dance

The long lines of rice,
the carefully banked and flooded fields
edged with leafy umbrellas of cassava and papaya
and trellised rows calling vegetables up from the ground.
Bent workers wading through muddy waters
below mountains that appear out of murky skies
and shield their sharp summits in downy billows.
All past the patchwork towns,
the shiny green-walled cupolas,
the rainbow red roof tiles,
all through the sun’s stretching arms,
the music plays
and I dance.
I dance.
I dance.

Oh Future, my Future

I want the unequivocal YES,
I want the sweet joy of riding bikes under the arching trees toward home,
I want whatever beautiful plant this is to grow in the garden of my mythical dream.
Oh Future, my Future,
envelope me with the regal fierceness of a July afternoon,
serenade to me with the gentle piercing call of dawn,
reach up to me through this rich earth
and show me where to plant these eager starts. 

  
 

One day

Leaving California again,
this time in the direction of power,
undulating through the mountain-rich wilds,
over the long miles,
I practice my “forgive you’s”.
One day soon I will be able to express them
fully,
unfollowed by anger.

One day.

The selfish suffering part of me
is not yet willing
to accept defeat
in this last battle.

One day,
soon.

We have some miles more to go yet.