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Dark. Sweet.
(NEW POEMS)
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1. The Unseen![]()
The Unseen
If you think I am going to write about someone’s god,
that’s a mistake. I am sitting by wild strawberries
not yet blooming. An emerald-green frog believes it can’t be seen
under the leaf. The insects it wants sing, also unseen,
and mourning doves in the distance
think I am not here with a silent song,
not even to interrupt morning’s eye wide open.
In the very near water, even with open eyes
I missed the leap. Fish, I didn’t see you, either.
The reeds grow and I am missing that, as well,
and the animal that just broke a fallen twig.
On the large stone is a petroglyph
of a mountain goat. It is covered with lichen
and barely visible like the moth that appears to be stone,
in its refuge.
I see so little and know so little.
Perhaps that is a kind of wisdom,
but, if nothing else, at the very least
I am not alone in the world
of the unseen.
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Bringers of Happiness
This dawn the lightning-struck tree grew new green leaves
as if overnight was an awakening.
How nourishing, how alive for us,
the intimacy of our days and nights.
Also, how frail it had gathered
the ecstatic beauty and strength
that had not lived for many years.
We have to believe in earth miracles.
Even the honey in trees beyond here.
The wisdom traditions will tell you all
it is there like the infinite truth of your soul, and it is.
I’ve had to start new lives
whether on earth, in body
or bones of other dimensions,
even new bonds with the spirit world
and I know the scar, like on the tree,
and how it mends,
some unknown bringers of happiness
filling the space between the broken,
filling the missing,
the emptiness.
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To Be Held
To be held
by the light
was what I wanted,
to be a tree drinking the rain,
no longer parched in this hot land,
roots in a tunnel growing,
but also to shelter the inborn leaves
and the green slide of mineral
down the immense distances
into infinite comfort
and the land here, only clay
that still contains and consumes
the thirsty need
the way a tree always does shelter the unborn life
waiting for the healing
after the storm
which has been our life.
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Maps
I have always lived in towns
not on maps.
Search, it is the only way
I have found these places myself.
The nea...
