In the garden
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In the garden
rags and broken bits,
trailing paper ribbons,
shards and excrement,
weave a picture, a scene
a thumb reel of protected vision.
The garden grows
though abandoned by light
and conscious thought.
Tangles give way to magical gates.
Imaginary flowers bloom,
twist absurd
mangling shapes,
evoke scents
unknowable in common categories.
Once the garden was ripe and lush,
fed legions,
earned prizes in the canons
of great literature.
If other gardens vied in performance,
it was for the grander glory of gardenhood.
Abundance
Lovers trysting
Children’s play
Old philosophers walking,
speaking deliberately, deeply,
breathing in heaven.
A garden of substance,
tradition and grace
where sore of heart might
find tender comfort, growing wild
in sweet evening breeze,
a calming call to prayer,
mending meditation
on the ways of Earth and sky and rain.
Walking the garden,
old, papery, withered of breath,
dreaming yesterdays, tomorrows,
screaming silently
a hope too desperate to speak
for vibrant new seeds
to take root.
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Back to Basics
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Walking backwards, over the cracks, the broken glass, the crying shame.
Looking in and out.  All the hostile visions I never want to see
damning me.
They say to give is blessed, when in doubt give it all away.
I say
we are each a universe, so many worlds, so many stars
we lose track
we look back
whoosh into the vastness of possible trajectories.
Without crossroads, without stones of demarcation,
we would fall upwards eternally.
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I am digging a well,
a holding place for tears.
When the hole is of the right proportions
I will fashion a tight container of stone and clay.
The excavation uncovers rotten cadavers, old bones
twisted from unhealed violations, bits of broken treasures,
shattered expectations,
here and there
pieces of nursery toys no longer loved.
I crawl through the earth, exulting in sensuous pleasure.
Moving like a snake at home in the elements,
shedding my skin, becoming silky sinuous sense cells.
It is so beautiful here, under it all.
Fertile soil, made of the cast off, the ruined, the dead.
Seeds try again to perfect the expression of dna.
It would all fall together naturally.
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But nature did not make me.
It was self-flagellating nurturance of worlds and stars
trying to cast off their earthly heritage.
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Sacred Geology
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Rich earth.
Consecrated life.
Imbued myriad layers
nourish omniscient spirit.
Starvations, immolations, decay
scarred into the land
making it holy.
Bounty of beauty
irrigated by tears
and less voluntary bodily fluids.
Teeming loam. Revitalizing
luscious fruits
giving forward.
Partaking of the feast
we are blessed,
renewed in empyreal essence.
Each at our pace,
nature’s cycle reclaims
all that we are
that we may become
yet more abundantly, complexly ()
layered.
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Eclipse Dream
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Jump!  Jittery.  Nauseous claustrophobia . . .
l e t t i n g  g o  s  l  o  o  o  w
Whoosh leap faster than my breath can catch me.
Dizzily, half-blinded, out of focus,
slant view along tree-strewn path.
Enchanted forest?
Smoke curling upward.
Gingerbread cottage in the woods.
Do I rest here, recoup my losses?
Savory soup simmers over tender hearth fire.
Shadow gloom occludes unswept corners.
Yet the center of the room
is surprisingly clean, radiant.
I sit, mantra embraced.
Nestled by magestic silk wings.
Outside winter is falling.
When I awaken from my trance
planting season will begin.
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The wild rains of spring
have caught me napping.
They catch me up in torrents,
swing me along,
a cradle in the sea.
I descry mazes,
wondrous pageantry
woven into  stellar stories.
Celestial spray anoints me.
I commence secret ceremony,
believing the Earth to be my home.
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Earth Angels
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Speciesism.
That boorish arrogance.
Deaf to wisdom, portrayed in
ominous myth, faery lore.
Slay the goose;
destroy the whales.
Uproot untold trees
bearing fruits that may have
saved us staggering pain.
Crucial for well-being
microbes, photosynthesis,
symbiotic
processes ignored, misunderstood.
Focus expended on ephemeral
opinion, petty greeds and rivalries,
diatribes on evil and good.
Realities we have yet to account to,
acknowledge,
fall, collateral damage
to insolent bravado.
When will we ever let go,
rethink this mad master plan,
relinquish need to command?
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Risen
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Sky born, lifted above
Water, Earth, primordial mud.
Bare breath and lilting light waft up, carry ephemeral
tongues, frenzied yet exquisite. Exaltation, daring
to swoop, touch, climb, pirouette.
Path briefly complete in hover, amazed over
flowering waves.
Winter Gods freeze-glaze mountain peaks,
rocky rivers, mother’s eyes.
She gives suck embalmed in vision trails,
engulfed in smoke of smelting flame,
gasping, tropically turning, blind, yet
beyond mistrust.  She regurgitates paste of
air, dust, instinct, steeped with spit
and love.  Taste her sacrifice.
A world drifts.  Black night backlit in
pinpricks.  Atmosphere composed like bioluminescence,
symphonic, symbiotic.  Listen as rippling elements
grow words, symbolic histories, into a Summer game.
Out here, sparkling rain weaves rainbows.  Reverence
casts poetry as shimmer and shadow play.
Up here, beyond boundaries of ordinary days,
the only Commandment to penetrate —
Be Peace
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Eco-Location
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It’s not the landscape, but the ambiance.
Emanant surroundings suggest fantasy motif.
Just that evocative forest green, desert rose.
Waft of lilac, vibrations of tidal reveries,
cast off, buried.  Reclaimed, exposed.
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Gracious glory.
Terra spins through stories.
Webs of sparkle and synapse
suspend on delicate balance.
Work and love,
expression and assimilation.
Venture in search of food, air, stimulation.
Ideation, imagination, mood impels
self-aware cells, each with place
and passion.
Busy interchange
at market and field
combines power to wield, grow
beyond personal boundaries
permeable to trade, exploration,
creative generation.
Each iteration fuels further spring to
essence.
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Gaea’s laughing.
Silly scrapping scavengers
groomed in self-importance
rarely see the joke.
Long has her fete entertained.
Sol to Gaea, flirting seasons, night and day.
Eons slip through alignment.
Mud to worm
to facile mind
wondering at starlight
as constellations parade
in siren mystery.
Common wisdom, basic observation.
If river, then water and silt,
mud, clay, pottery, etched hieroglyphs,
television, robotics, space aeronautics.
Rippling along sinuous riverbed
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I can smell the salty sands of yesteryear,
taste tears of copper, touch sparkling rain,
feel the lift of storms in formation
fill evening breeze with electric potential.
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