The Sacred Life

There comes a time
when you want to run.
Run as far away as you can.

Run from your life.
Run from the task
that is so large
it cannot be done.

A Descending Poem

The simple fact is that life
with all its convolutions, paradoxes and ironies,
ambiguities and buggering endless pairs of opposites,
is pretty bizarre
much of the time.
...

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and...

A Day is Coming

A day is coming
in which misery will end.
A day is coming
in which poverty
will open bank accounts
in every nation.
A day is coming.
I hear it coming.

You Cannot Kill Me

I am not only I
but a multiplicity of souls
I have always been here
I will always be back
I was your uncle, your 5th grade teacher, your cousin
I will be your grandson,...

TheSoldiers In The Garden


After the coup,
the soldiers appeared
in Neruda’s garden one night,
raising lanterns to interrogate the trees,
cursing at the rocks that tripped them.
From the...

Every Revolution Needs Fresh Poems

Every revolution needs fresh poems
that is the reason
poetry cannot die.
It is the reason poets
go without sleep
and sometimes without lovers
without new...

Rise and Fall - Larry Robinson

Rise and Fall

Let go of fear
and rest in that which is.
For peace, like love,
comes to those who allow it.

Let go of fear

Proclamation


Whereas the world is a house on fire;
Whereas the nations are filled with shouting;
Whereas hope seems small, sometimes
a single bird on a wire
left by migration behind....

The Word


Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between "green thread"
and "broccoli," you find
that you have penciled "sunlight."

Relax

Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue...

Waving Goodbye


A new suitcase in one hand,
car keys in the other and finally
off to college for the first time.

Looking back past the walnut tree
a last glance at the old house
his...

The Second Music


Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,
one below the other, one easier to hear, the other
lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard
yet always...

Green Apples


In August we carried the old horsehair mattresshttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2015-08-12_12-11-38.png
To the back porch
And slept with our children in a row....

Blackberries
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2015-08-11_13-48-05.png
It must be August.
Brambles have taken over the roads,
have conquered the verges
and now invade the rest....

The Word That Is a Prayer


One thing you know when you say it:
all over the earth people are saying it with you;
a child blurting it out as the seizures take her,
a woman reciting it on a cot...

Here's some more info:

I had several allergies, mostly foods, the biggest was egg whites, and then wheat, pineapple, kale and then plant mostly alfalfa and then mold/mildew from what I can...

This Is The Time

This is the time for holding still.
It is the space between breaths.
It is before you pick up the pen.
And after the last syllable.
It is the mountain lake unshattered.
It is...

Dear Human

Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong.
You didn’t come here to master unconditional love.
That is where you came from and where you’ll return.
You came here to learn personal love....

The Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly31137
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,...

To My Mother

I was your rebellious son,
do you remember? Sometimes
I wonder if you do remember,
so complete has your forgiveness been.

So complete has your forgiveness been
I wonder...

Hello all,
I appreciate and agree with most of the thoughtful discussion in this thread that I have read (haven't read all).
I tried to raise my son without toy guns.
Yes, he made them from...

Women Without Facelifts

Their smiles are strikingly similar. Withouthttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2015-01-29_13-37-04.png
vanity's masks and the veil of self conscious,...

Do Not Be Ashamed


You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw...

There Is No One But Us


There is no one but us.
There is no one to send,
nor a clean hand nor a pure heart
on the face of the earth,
but only us,
a generation comforting ourselves
with the...

A Poem A Day

I got another poem today
Just like everyday
A miracle on the internet
Sometimes I read them
Sometimes I'm too busy
Yet they still come
A poem a day

Bedecked

Tell me it's wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy
store rings he clusters four jewels to each finger.

He's bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star
choker,...

Water Shed


The green expanse of duck weed
Parts and there he sits,
Proud - or so I imagine -
In all his feathered irridescence,
Shedding water with neither thought nor effort.

If You Knew


What if you knew you’d be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to...

Visitors from Abroad


1


Sometime after I had entered
that time of   life
people prefer to allude to in others
but not in themselves, in the middle of the night

Epiphany


Just as I gave up waitinghttps://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2013-11-18_12-02-50.png
and turned back to tend the fire,
the full moon rose over the Mogollon Rim,
sending...

The History Teacher


Trying to protect his students' innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.
And...

What The Dog Perhaps Hears


If an inaudible whistle
blown between our lips
can send him home to us,
then silence is perhaps
the sound of spiders breathing
and roots mining the earth;
it...

Epitaph
When I die
Give what's left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you.
And when you need me,

A Thousand Little Irritants


The way mail piles up
the way we argue
the way we fail
and keep failing
the way we age
and carry grudges
the way we hurt ourselves

Exit Signs


Wherever I am I notice exit signs.
(Most seem to be printed in TIMES CAPITAL.)
I particularly like the lighted ones,
even though they can distract you from the movie.
The green...

A Conversation with God
Hello God.
I think it's time for you and me
to have a little chat.
You know, I've prayed
year after year
for forgiveness
and in Your kindness,
You have always loved...

September Meditation


I do not know if the seasons remember their history or if the days and
nights by which we count time remember their own passing.
I do not know if the oak tree remembers...

I Said To My Friend


When I knew you would die
sooner, rather than later, much later,
after the transplant you never got,
I said to my friend, who is 89 (but
says she is 90, and who can...

The Life of a Day


Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look closely. But there are so few days as compared to people, not to...

Danny Boy
I dreamed my dead friend, Dan,
came back. All six feet of him,
dressed as usual, minus shoes.


I offered him some brown size twelves
my uncle left behind.
But he shook his head,

My Grandmother’s Hands


Looking at my hand as I write
I am drawn back
to the calmness of your stately image
the peace in your gentle embrace.


Knitting needles click

When a country obtains great power,
it becomes like the sea:
all streams run downward into it.
The more powerful it grows,
the greater the need for humility.
Humility means trusting the Tao,...

Olema Blues


Sitting silently in zazen
an earworm love song with
big old hearts in my head,
the whole world morphed into music.


The room itself was a twelve bar blues fading

MY SPIRITUAL PATH


I have lit a candle in an ancient cathedral
and felt the power of the thousands of prayers
that were said there.


I have leaned against the trunk
of a thousand year old...

Old Man Leaves Party


It was clear when I left the party
That though I was over eighty I still had
A beautiful body. The moon shone down as it will
On moments of deep introspection. The wind...

How sweet it was yesterday imagining I was a tree!
I had almost rooted in one place
and grew in sovereign slowness there.
I took the breeze and the north wind,
caresses, blows--what difference...

The Mower


The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.


I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I...

The Rider


A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn't catch up to him,
the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.
What I wonder tonight
pedaling...

The Island


Every visit, my mother-in-law Ruth
sang us under the table.
A few hours of old standards
and Barbara and I would duck out,
ready for bed, knowing
her mom could go on all night.