Poem for the day from Larry Robinson

To Step off a Hundred Foot Pole

The koan asks: If you can step forward and reveal yourself fully, there will be no place where you are called dishonorable. So, right now, tell me. How do you step forward from the top of the hundred-foot pole?

Start your day with
Three assumptions: you are
Safe. You have enough.
You cannot get life wrong.
Now, step out and live.

Foolish, I know. Knowing that
Danger, like dragons
Waits for so many,
Knowing hunger is inheritance to
Too many. Missteps must be
Avoided lest vulnerability
Be exposed. Still too many

With plenty
Start days with
Three assumptions: danger
Is all around. More is needed.
You will likely
Get life wrong, make mistakes
Expose vulnerability.

It is to those, I say,
Start your day with
Three assumptions: strangers
Are ones you haven’t yet met.
You have enough to share.
Life itself can’t be wrong.

It’s to those I say,
Safe, you’ll find
Those unlike you more
Like you. Satisfied
With enough, the grip
Of greed loosens, generosity
Becomes routine, normal.
Mistakes will reveal themselves
As unlocked doors.

Safe, satisfied, secure
We are able to step off
That hundred foot pole,
Feel the wind wave
Through our one body.

So to you I say, Start your day
Knowing you are safe,
You have enough,
You cannot get life wrong.
Now take that step.
The universe is here to hold you.

- Rebecca del Rio

There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.

Drink all your passion
and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.

Open your hands,
if you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle.

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders.
Don't accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover's mouth in yours.

You moan, "She left me." "He left me."
Twenty more will come.

Be empty of worrying.
Think who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.

- Jelalludin Rumi

I can hear Coleman Barks in my minds voice. ( was that the translator?) On my list of 100 to read i have the masnavi, will i live that long...

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
...
- Jelalludin Rumi

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Cleaning Up After the Poetry Salon

It's not always easy.

Proper nouns are manageable.
They stack well.
Biggest on the bottom -
The Great Plains, Idaho, Mt. Rainier -
then the smaller stuff left behind -
Boxcars, photographs, you know.

Adjectives are remarkably tough to clean up.
The dry ones catch on the furniture,
bury themselves in cracks
hide in the pocket of an old sweater.
They crumble to awkward, ungainly,
unmanageable, yes fragile
pieces …that somehow cunningly avoid
the shedding broom some poet has
left behind.
And wet ones like sticky and slimy - yikes!

Cleaning up the leavings of Wendell Berry?
it's a grange meeting hall.
Rich black dirt everywhere,
corn stalks, the lingering thick odor of
compost and just a hint of cow manure
on your shoes and your best carpet.

And Jesus! Those poems about stars -
the poets have no idea.
Whole constellations left behind -
Watch it with the Pleides, they have sharp points
And yes, the Dog Star does bite.

My rule would be -
you brought 'em, you take 'em home.

Food is good in a poem.
Mom's apple pie and romantic dinners for two
are usually digested by the salon - no leftovers.
It's the ethnic dishes with strange names
luedafisk, sauerkraut, gefiltafish
and anything made with hot peppers
Well, you know.

Poets - a little consideration -
slip in some sponges, maybe
a mop or really - just a mouthful of food,
a spoonful -
yes, spoons for everybody.

And come on,
no animals bigger than a cat or small dog.
polar bears and coyotes are disasters.

Oh I could go on…
mixed metaphors sliding
down the walls and tangled
in the drapes.

Cliches hiding their heads in the corners.
shy, embarrassed marmots standing by dead seals.
stinking sea weed and sharks behind the sofa
And fish - fish beyond number -
flopping on the floor.

Verbs are easy - they move around
so much - just
open the door and they
take care of themselves.

But poets,
It's the birds left behind…
Egret, Robin, wrens, a flock of seagulls,
a murder of crows…
For God's sake leave a window open.

But eagle, oh my friends, the eagle
he glowers there
from the chandelier
Royally pissed!
A moment in a poem
then forgotten
in the closed room.

I know, I know.
I'm making a new mess now -
I'll need some help here with
Idaho and that eagle.

For the rest
I brought 'em.
I'll take 'em home.

- Doug von Koss

How It Happens


The sky said I am watching

to see what you

can make out of nothing

I was looking up and I said

I thought you

were supposed to be doing that

the sky said Many

are clinging to that

I am giving you a chance

I was looking up and I said

I am the only chance I have

then the sky did not answer

and here we are

with our names for the days

the vast days that do not listen to us



- W.S. Merwin

There are a few that make something out of nothing and even without punctuation
one of the newer experiments poets are imitating from ws merwin

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

How It Happens
...
- W.S. Merwin

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Background image taken one evening from the Jr. College's Maginni Hall's 3rd floor.

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Posted in reply to the post by Larry Robinson:

How It Happens ...

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If They Should Come for Us

these are my people & I find

them on the street & shadow

through any wild all wild

my people my people
a dance of strangers in my blood

the old woman’s sari dissolving to wind

bindi a new moon on her forehead

I claim her my kin & sew
the star of her to my breast

the toddler dangling from stroller
hair a fountain of dandelion seed

at the bakery I claim them too

the sikh uncle at the airport
who apologizes for the pat

down the muslim man who abandons
his car at the traffic light drops

to his knees at the call of the azan

& the muslim man who sips

good whiskey at the start of maghrib

the lone khala at the park

pairing her kurta with crocs

my people my people I can’t be lost

when I see you my compass

is brown & gold & blood

my compass a muslim teenager

snapback & high-tops gracing
the subway platform

mashallah I claim them all

my country is made

in my people’s image

if they come for you they

come for me too in the dead

of winter a flock of

aunties step out on the sand

their dupattas turn to ocean

a colony of uncles grind their palms

& a thousand jasmines bell the air

my people I follow you like constellations

we hear the glass smashing the street

& the nights opening their dark

our names this country’s wood

for the fire my people my people

the long years we’ve survived the long

years yet to come I see you map

my sky the light your lantern long

ahead & I follow I follow

- Fatimah Asghar

The Mortician in San Francisco

This may sound queer,
but in 1985 I held the delicate hands
of Dan White:
I prepared him for burial; by then, Harvey Milk
was made monument—no, myth—by the years
since he was shot.

I remember when Harvey was shot:
twenty, and I knew I was queer.
Those were the years,
Levi’s and leather jackets holding hands
on Castro Street, cheering for Harvey Milk—
elected on the same day as Dan White.

I often wonder about Supervisor White,
who fatally shot
Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk,
who was one of us, a Castro queer.
May 21, 1979: a jury hands
down the sentence, seven years—

in truth, five years—
for ex-cop, ex-fireman Dan White,
for the blood on his hands;
when he confessed that he had shot
the mayor and the queer,
a few men in blue cheered. And Harvey Milk?

Why cry over spilled milk,
some wondered, semi-privately, for years—
it meant “one less queer.”
The jurors turned to White.
If just the mayor had been shot,
Dan might have had trouble on his hands—

but the twelve who held his life in their hands
maybe didn’t mind the death of Harvey Milk;
maybe, the second murder offered him a shot
at serving only a few years.
In the end, he committed suicide, this Dan White.
And he was made presentable by a queer.

- Randall Mann

Love Letter from Baghdad


Call me Rabia. I was
named for the Sufi Saint.
Blood pumps through the four
chambers of my heart,
swift and scarlet with joy or slow
and bruised black with sorrow.
We are the same.

This morning, as I pin up wash
in my rubbled court yard,
the long fingers of the sun reach
over the desert and sting my sleepless
eyes like dust, like diesel fumes.
There’s an explosion.
Did you hear it?

My neighbor sinks to the ground
in the folds of her burka,
a dark flower, rocking and keening,
her bloodied grandchild in her arms.
The earth trembles with
the terrible sound of her grief.
We are the same.

I want to share sweet memories
with you, of date palm and pomegranate,
the hay fragrance of saffron, the song
of the nightingale. I invite you
to share yours with me.
We are the same.

Come sister, let’s raise our arms
and begin. We’ll spin
and dance like the Sufis.
It will take as many turns
as there are stars
to make this right.
We do not yet know the steps.

- Gail Barker

A Brief History of Love

The first-born of Mother Chaos, it is said,

https://www.waccobb.net/forums/wacco...5_12-18-11.png

was Eros of the piercing, life-giving darts.
& then through eons & eons of Cosmic turmoil
was born Earth who in union with the Sun
through eons & eons of gestation
gave birth to Life. Through more eons & eons
of calamity, catastrophe & trial,
Life grew sentient —colors & sounds,
smells, tastes, the feel of things.
And later after eons & eons
(though far less) it grew conscious
of wonder & of myth, of history & science,
strange mixtures of love & fear,
curiosity, invention, & awry desires,
until Tonantzin, the Great Mother
is wounded by us, her wayward children.

Awaking to what is
now we must defend the Earth
from ourselves
with a fierce love.

- Rafael Jesús González

---

Breve historia del amor

El primogénito de Madre Caos, se dice,
fue Eros de las saetas penetrantes, dadoras de vida.
Y luego a través de eones y eones de agitación Cósmica
nació la Tierra que en unión con el Sol
a través de eones y eones de preñez
dio luz a la Vida. A través más eones y eones
de calamidad, catástrofe y prueba,
la Vida se hizo sensible —colores y sonidos,
olores, sabores, tacto de las cosas,
Y más tarde después de eones y eones
(aunque muchos menos) se hizo consciente
de asombro y de mito, de historia y ciencia,
extrañas mixturas de amor y de miedo,
curiosidad, invención y torcidos deseos
hasta que ahora Tonantzin, la Gran Madre
es herida por nosotros, sus hijos desviados.

Despertando a lo que es
ahora tendremos que defender a la Tierra
de nosotros mismos
con un amor feroz.

- Rafael Jesús González

Parkland



Consider the red-boned manzanita

for years its seeds patient

buried beneath parent shade

until acres of trees blazed

bright on sway-backed hills

then fell like dark snow—

a blanket of blackened ash.



But that heat released the sleeping seeds

cracked open tight seed coats, awoke

a generation to germination

now stretching down sturdy roots

now pushing up strong shoots

green arms breaking through

burnt and crusted soil—

now a bright reminder

of what youth can do


- Lisa Shulman

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is God our Father dear,

And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love

Is man, His child

and care.


For Mercy has a human heart,

Pity, a human face,

And Love, the human form divine,

And Peace, the human dress.


- William Blake

The Tale of Noah

Imagine Noah at the end of the Ice Age.
The glaciers are melting, seas rising.
Atlantis has gone underwater.
Civilizations are drowning, or learning to swim.
Everything is changing, new maps drawn.
His sons report warmer weather
All over the known world.

An ocean of water sits high above the valley.
Its icy lip thinning as danger looms.
He wants to save his animals from the flood.
So, he builds a boat that will only float.
His daughters report dying crops.
Men all around call him mad.

One day, the ice rim cracks, the frigid water
Sitting poised, ready to fill the void.
It is time. He leads his animals
Into the massive zoo, meticulously tailored.
His men report imminent disaster.
The ice rim cracks again.

At the foot of the valley is a stone wall, miles long,
Solid, firm, two hundred yards high.
It was made by men to keep strangers out.
But today, it will also keep the water in.
His animals report anxious dis-ease.
And the flooding begins.


The first torrent slams the heavy door shut.
The huge vessel spins like a top.
Men are thrown overboard into violent waves.
The border wall holds, the village is destroyed.
They all hear reports of snapping trees.
As the vessel lifts and floats.

For days they drift ever closer to the wall.
The new lake breaches, creating waterfalls.
Outside, all see the bobbing ship high above,
Expecting it to fall, come crashing down.
Soldiers report evacuations.
All hangs tense and beautiful.

Finally, a tunnel through the wall gives way.
The drain begins, a new river rushes out.
What was old washes away, destroyed.
But the huge wall stands firm, strong.
The shamans report sunny skies
As everything changes.

Weeks later, the water is only slightly down.
The boat is grounded on the valley’s arm.
All is intact, no one else has died.
Noah finally opens the door as silence abounds.
His wife reports that she is pregnant.
And the sky is a new strange blue.

- Jon Jackson

Borderland

As we zig zag the
US and Canada border
from Maine to Seattle
and into Alaska

We travel through Native lands
families and friends separated
long lines of cars and trucks
on land and bridges
close communities
divided

Passports to be shown
sunglasses off
those with a DUI
cannot cross over
even as passengers
or ever again
I heard it said

Sometimes it’s a long trek
other times not
Reservations and Reserves
two separate lands
on one border
or another

Veteran Elders come
to participate
at Eagle Staff gatherings
some well into their 90’s

Regalia and bundles
inside the car
the border patrol
depending who you get
know better now
to not go through them

Officers with good training
have learned to respect
the ways and traditions
different from theirs

Indigenous men
women and children
come to participate
in a pow wow
a celebration
a sacred circle
on the other side

First Nations go south
Native Americans go north
First Alaskans go east
Northern First Nations go west

To participate and celebrate
to give thanks for each other
the earth
the land and waters
animals and trees
stories from another time

Everything done in a circle
intricately sewn regalia
headdresses, jingle dresses
made with feathers, beads
and the hide of buffalo
caribou, deer, and seal

Songs and traditions
from long ago
to say we are one
in a circle

with no borders


- Ziibinkokwe, Turtle Clan (Patricia LeBon Herb)

Time to be the fine line of light

between the blind and the sill, nothing
really. There are so many things

that destroy. To think solely of them
is as foolish and expedient as not

thinking of them at all. All I want
is to be the river though I return

again and again to the clouds.
All I want is to stop beginning sentences

with All I want. No—no really all
I want is this morning: my daughter

and my son saying “Da!” back and forth
over breakfast, cracking each other up

while eating peanut butter toast
and raspberries, making a place for

the two of them I will, eventually,
no longer be allowed to enter. Time to be

the fine line. Time to practice being
the line. And then maybe the darkness.

- Carrie Fountain

Batter My Heart, Transgender’d God

Batter my heart, transgender’d god, for yours
is the only ear that hears: place fear in my heart
where faith has grown my senses dull & reassures
my blood that it will never spill. Show every part
to every stranger’s anger, surprise them with my drawers
full up of maps that lead to vacancies & chart
the distance from my pride, my core. Terror, do not depart
but nest in the hollows of my loins & keep me on all fours.
My knees, bring me to them; force my head to bow again.
Replay the murders of my kin until my mind’s made new;
let Adam’s bite obstruct my breath ’til I respire men
& press his rib against my throat until my lips turn blue.
You, O duo, O twin, whose likeness is kind: unwind my confidence
& noose it round your fist so I might know you in vivid impermanence.

- Meg Day

Untitled

The Soul
a seasoned wise man
sits on solid ground
without desire
free of fire
no hint of resistance.

While the personality
an insistent
teenager on espresso
bounces around
furiously from anger
to joy doubt
to hubris fear
to depression.
It yearns to be noticed
to be taken
seriously
to be loved
all the while
leaving a trail
of dirty laundry.

The Soul could care less.
When the personality
is ready the Soul will be
waiting like a peaceful
Buddha with an inviting smile.
Without words it will say
I’ve been expecting you.

Whether in the early morning
of life or the dead of night
the Soul will be there
receiving
accepting.
It owns no clocks.


- Clara Rosemarda

Caution: Can a half-ass Buddhist have nearly as many spiritual ancestors as a very wise roshi?

I

Unless you’re dead, my friend
you’re wounded, ten thousand times mangled,
blood seeping, pus oozing.

Then again, if you’re already dead, you’re a ghost.
Doesn’t even matter whether ghosts exist,
now or never.

My Zen teacher’s teacher died a few weeks ago. In the Zendo, on our alter beneath the photograph of Bernie Glassman,
Roshi’s spiritual ancestor, a thread of yellow tape
with the word caution printed across.

What’s there to be cautious about?
Perhaps a spiral descent,
releasing iron-clad fixed identity,
face time encounter with your own private stash
of greed, anger and ignorance, mask upon mask
peeled off your face, only the moment
and an organizing principle left
flapping like flesh
in the wind.

Do you equate death with absence of consciousness,
life null and void?

After leaving the Zen Center
where Roshi Enkyo suggested
I write a poem about depression; I head towards Think Coffee,
Ethiopian Blend and a croissant,
while workmen dig holes ten feet from the cafe door--
yellow construction tape warning customers:
CAUTION.

Why?
Danger ahead: unless you honor your ancestors,
they’ll seek revenge and burn your ass crisp as toast.
Still., they are only part of a flame that never subsides
until you’re dead


II

This poem, like existence,
Is full of detours
and unanswered questions,
a patchwork quilt multi-colored
stitched with random impressions.

111

Our spiritual ancestors need not be Gods or holy men.
Often they’re objects or character traits,
gifts that seem like curses,
handed down by neurotic parents.
(in my case Anne and Nat)
leaving me blindsided
by cynicism, materialism, fear.

Mom thought I would die if I severed a thumb,
explored the world on my own or aroused another’s ire.

While I wished nothing more
than growing up free of failure.

Dad sensed
I never would be tough as nails,
nor a flashy dresser like him,
always remaining
a dark weight
hanging from his heart.


I, on the other hand,
wished nothing more
than absence of anxiety.

At 77
embracing experience
and language,
images and aphorisms
freeing me to define my universe
while accepting the terrors of randomness,
I know my fears can never be less that of my spiritual ancestors,
than the greats and the ghosts: Henry Miller, Emily Dickinson, Willie Mays, Eugene V Debs, Basho and Richard Pryor.

In the fifth Grade Alfred Murphy
asked what part of my face I wanted punched
hard as hard ever was
and I began to cry.

Now,
(like the turn in a poem)
I box for pleasure
throwing hooks and uppercuts with abandon.

Maybe this poem
will continue
until the day I die
and only you,
my friend, will be left to judge
the fragments.

- Barry Denny

To My Ancestors

To you, whom I did not know,
To you, who took the steps
to create your future
to carve a new path as your world
turned upside down.

To you, who left your country,
your soil,
to brave the seas
and take a chance on life—
to start over
to have hope
to linger in thoughts and dreams and aspirations.

To you, who created the footsteps
to continue life
to want more
to nurture and bring forth a new generation.

To you, who let me be born
out of the desire of the human soul,

I thank you.

- Sherrie Lovler

Green, Green is My Sister’s House

Don’t you dare climb that tree
or even try, they said, or you will be
sent way to the hospital of the
very foolish, if not the other one.
And I suppose, considering my age,
it was fair advice.

But the tree is a sister to me, she
lives alone in a green cottage
high in the air and I know what
would happen, she’d clap her green hands,
she’d shake her green hair, she’d
welcome me. Truly.

I try to be good but sometimes
a person just has to break out and
act like the wild and springy thing
one used to be. It’s impossible not
to remember wild and not want to go back. So

if someday you can’t find me you might
look into that tree or—of course
it’s possible—under it.

- Mary Oliver

In Defense Of Those Who Harbor Terrible Ideas At Tax Time

:whip:

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.
Like so many others. Sleeping with that guy.
Not checking the address. Letting him put it in
without a condom just the once. Who hasn’t done
all that and worse, is what I was thinking,
driving to H&R Block to get my taxes done
and listening to the radio where everyone keeps talking about
the young black gay actor who orchestrated
a fake hate crime against himself.
It must have seemed like such a good idea to him
at the time, I think, clutching to my chest
the scattered bits of our financial life—
receipts and pay stubs, the record of all I’ve spent
on poetry contests and that workshop
on musical theater—enough
to buy a hot tub, a cheap used one, anyway,
on Craigslist—and that might
or might not be a disaster, too, you never know.
I’ve booked an appointment
with the nicest CPA in the world—Dennis—
who says to me, “You’re not a cookie-cutter person.
Don’t be ashamed of your life.” Really, he should be a therapist
instead of an accountant, but I hope he stays at this job forever,
smoothing out my crumpled 1099s, recording
the five hundred dollars I made coaching
for Poetry Out Loud, the thousand
from that one contest I did win, and then all the bills
when our old home’s ancient plumbing gave up the ghost.
It’s more than I can face head-on, this evidence
of how we live and earn and spend and waste
our lives, and I heard that the young man, an actor, staged the crime
against himself because he felt he wasn’t being paid enough—
though I bet he was paid more than a poet—
well, who isn’t? And who, in the end, doesn’t feel
attention must be paid? Although few would go
to such lengths to get it. I’ve had my share
of Bad Ideas, God knows, and all of them seemed Good to me
at the time, and so have you, I bet, and so has everyone.
It’s the human condition, after all, to be assailed by a million thoughts
a day, most of them insane—I remember I once thought
of becoming a dominatrix, for example—that didn’t last long,
then I thought maybe I’d write a play
about a woman who becomes a dominatrix
in late middle age, to pay the bills—and well,
you see where all this is heading.
I have to forgive this young man his terrible
idea, I have to because, in my own way, I’ve been him.
And while we’re at it all those others
whose freakazoid fancies must have seemed brilliant
to them for a minute, the way all our eurekas do at three a.m.—
gleaming like fool’s gold … haven’t we all
chased them like magical butterflies
through the meadowlands of imagination,
only to end up empty-handed and chagrined,
and far from home?

- Allison Luterman

The Moment


Oh, the coming-out-of-nowhere moment

when, nothing

happens

no what-have-I-to-do-today-list


maybe half a moment

the rush of traffic stops.

The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be

slows to silence,

the white cotton curtains hanging still.

- Marie Howe

How to Triumph Like a Girl

I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
that they’re ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first.

- Ada Limón

The More Loving One



Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.


How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.


Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.


Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.


- W.H. Auden

Renunciation

There will always be voices that promise you greatness and glory:
They call out from the worldly marketplace;
They call out from the spiritual marketplace;
They call out from the fill-your-holes-marketplace;
They call out from the bigger-better-more marketplace.

Do not buy their false promises, or purchase their ephemeral wares;
What fulfills for a moment is not worth the price of your soul.
There are heights that will lift you, but not when you try to ascend them;
There are powers that will fill you, but not when you make them your own.
There are treasures, and there are imitations of treasures.
If you have lost your true gold, at least turn away from the glitter.

Want only what is true.
This will lead you to the well of your deepest sorrows.
Follow that passageway, all the way down;
Become the dark emptiness of your absent core.
Be still. Don't measure the waiting.
Be still. Let the waiting become a fire.
Be still. Let the fire show you its secret heart:
A strand of clear light running through you.
Gather yourself there, and the luminous universe opens.
In that vast expanse, fathomless, infinite ocean of light,
Lose yourself, and find yourself, and become what you already are.

- Jennifer Welwood

Of Eons and Epics


I.
We wake with arrowheads—
our hands clamped around dreams,
dreams of hummocky bodies
glacial names tattooed
on each blue-rivered forearm.
What does it mean to hunger
for shards,
a glossary to story us?


I tell it this way:
the sculpting,
the whittle-form of earth—
say kettle with a hard k.
Something is always taken,
something left behind;
it becomes you—literally.
You tombolo, you esker.
We are all debris—
our story a remnant
of what moved across us.
What bounteousness!
We are glacial terrain,
marked pathways—myth.


What does it mean for my fingers, eyes, tongue?
to brim with a telling,
the silk-voiced dream
of one body moving against another?


II.
Sometimes the story is simple:
the etched back of Turtle that holds us—
it asks only belief.
Earthdivers one and all—sleek
water bodies surfacing,
emerge to sing on holy ground.


But the way they tell it
we are land animals,
humanity a paradise of aloneness:
a solved mystery, a locked garden
a departure—
that story the walking away.
The way they tell it
the flood always recedes
from impossible watery origins.


But who fixes the science of meaning?
The truth is:
awake and asleep we betray our small selves
wander beyond borders—
is water bird a metaphor?


III.
I tell it this way:
The diving for survival
(mahng, amik, nigig
together with mink and Nanaboozho).
Their feathered and furred bodies.
Ours. Gathering tiny grains of copper—
sand and sky’s minstrel breath;
Noodin whirling from four directions,
until this:
small magic we call earth.


But feel the fire and flexing beneath us—
the rumble-voiced pulse of this planet,
the vibration of our tectonic bodies?
Remember, we too are still motion—
burning wet and storied,
mythic like Turtle Island.


Imagine with me metamorphic becoming,
each miraculous emergence:
tetrapod limbs
from gelatinous tadpole bodies,
oceans and islands
rising receding rising
in their dance with volcanic force.
Our lives, too, servant to the alchemy
to the carving gusts of wind and water,
time—and telling.


IV.
Sing me again the saga of sin
and separation,
of humans and hierarchies;
I’ll sing you
the ballad of glacial bodies
of many creatures made of water and belief—
the one about transformations
about eons and epics—
these sacred cycles and everyday survivals.


The truth is:
we amphibious, we minstrel-born
wear the spiraling path of legends
on each whorled fingertip.
Like the trace of time on the clay of earth—
the drumlin swarms, the conical hills;
we too rise new each day from sleep
to storied lives—to archetypes and anthems,
to the spectacular castings of destiny.
Recite with me each rhapsody history or rumor—
our ancient epic inked now
pigment on rock-face, carbon on parchment,
memory on skin.


- Kimberley Blaeser

Becoming the Listening Fields

In the end is the Word and the Word is story – our story, soft as the womb,
silent as sun rays sipping sea mist, loud as sonic booms and atom bombs.

Our story, sacred and profane, ever beginning, ever ending
and the ending that is Now, that is our doing and our undoing,

a post-biblical flood of torn multitudes seeking refuge on dispirited shores,
history's catastrophes, seeded when Word left the breath to grow cold on the page.

Yet even as Now explodes, smoke fumes consuming the air, our story grows:
Plums ripening in the over-bright aftermath of alphabets' fall from grace

Endgames defiling holy writ, end flames of creed and greed, energies blasted from
primal bonds, forged into pawns of godless purpose -- weapons, poison, junk.

Still our stories ripen. Spirit fruit. Courage beyond the lash on naked flesh, beyond
the ropes of scar, the chains of disdain, the rabid feral tortures, the drone infernos.

Stories pour from us now, wine pressed into the page, libations for the goddess
gods within, for the children lean and staring through refugee fences, hungry

or over-plump and mirthless, staring at flickering screens. Libations for all the lined
faces, the colonized eyes, jailed and enslaved in thoughts so perverse they blind Self

and devour Other, the ever-fertile over-flowing Other, weaving scented air with
whisper leaves, with rippling feathers and fur, flashing horns and thorns, pulsing in

in petals and pollen, in glimmer vein wings, the One and the All, breathing each to
each, as it was in The Beginning, vibrations intertwining, forming harmony's web.

We entered as echoes, melodies from the Milky Way, star chords ebbing and
flowing, finding words in the listening fields, becoming the listening fields.

- Cynthia Poten

Frost on Fire

A thing that melts can also burn: like a
Thicket of ice in the pond, the cold net
Of stars, even the hard white ax of the
Heart. A man can freeze without getting wet

Just as he can lose without being lost,
But winter finds everyone, even though
We spend our whole lives eluding it. Frost
Reminds us of what is to come — the snow,

The sky, the trees, the skin, the sleet, the sleep.
How often have I woken in fear, blind
In my unknowing? The woods are dark and deep,
Even in the day; still the mind will find

Its way into the light, into the bright
Thaw of this life, where we, both flake and flame,
Fire and fall through. Let sun daze, let night
Show day how to blaze, let death drop its name.
A thing that melts can also burn: like a
Thicket of ice in the pond, the cold net
Of stars, even the hard white ax of the
Heart. A man can freeze without getting wet

Just as he can lose without being lost,
But winter finds everyone, even though
We spend our whole lives eluding it. Frost
Reminds us of what is to come — the snow,

The sky, the trees, the skin, the sleet, the sleep.
How often have I woken in fear, blind
In my unknowing? The woods are dark and deep,
Even in the day; still the mind will find

Its way into the light, into the bright
Thaw of this life, where we, both flake and flame,
Fire and fall through. Let sun daze, let night
Show day how to blaze, let death drop its name.

- Dean Rader



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I've added a little of my art work, hopefully enhancing the poem. I'll be sending it to friends in wintery climes.