Tag Archives: detachment

a gift, living on a busy street

8 Dec

I hear the pulse beat of the humans

and the whoosh of their motion

as they go about their ways

in a variety of machines

and speeds

and mind states.

bless them all

not far from my small

and quiet movements

and variable mind states

a mirror to the not infrequent

police chase drama

flat tires

train crossing delays

a wreck on 526

a high wind on the bridge

death and inconvenience alike

backs them up

just out my front door

18 wheelers make the house shake

and help me to remember

that my feet are touching the floor

over a crawl space

that has me suspended over dirt

mixed with sand

from an ocean

which six million years before

expressed a different sort of highway

on this same spot.

Bowing to the size of time

and motion

and thoroughfare

heartbeats

within/without

in a dream

I might open my door

and instead of cars

there might be bellowing whales

once again

making their way

wailing a song about time.

Come back all my lovely

friends, who sit on my daybed,

patient question mark humans,

who drink tea and bless

the cars, the humans, the sea creatures

and ourselves, in timeless time marking

rituals of quiet love

for all who pass by here.

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if a pile of ashes could speak

30 Jun

What if I just stopped

trying so hard

and just let the love,

knocking at the door,

inside?

A dangerous question…

Small gestures

are having Richter waves

in and out of this body-

a student’s obligatory email

wishing me a good day

suddenly is seen for the kindness it contains

and when some angry words are muttered

in the grocery store line,

out of her own pain,

I sigh, so kind!

Living in the seat of now

helps me to see all I overlooked before

but this seat is also hot,

an electric chair.

Will I burst into flames

sitting here too often?

It feels so, at the tender edge,

where death by combustion is certain.

Running from the fire

of our own beauty

and peace

is a silly and dramatic pretense.

It feels like

there’s nothing left to say

about anything other than that.

Now, I’m only able to return to the hot seat

10,000 times a day.

My charring is on the menu.

Every face that enters my world, my mirror,

every bee that buzzes and stings, as well.

Every watermelon too heavy to carry,

it’s thickness a testament

to the persistence and strength

for the will of matter and life,

inedible from my palate,

yet still holding up its end

of a cycle

from seed to fruit to seed

sown in soil

of waste turning into food,

given time.

I think I am.

I perceive this world as broken

but as I stretch beyond myopia

I see the world rightly aflame,

but really,  I am,

and

you are, aren’t you?

Life happens on the skin

and in the sinew

Down to the cells holding

an agreement of flesh together

which we forget to register.

Pat your belly

and eat the watermelon

and feel

what is here

now, right here

that close.

So simple,

the fire

of your existence.

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without within without

29 Jun

I am the space in which i move –

not the other way around.

Motion happens in this shift, oh and stillness, too.

I am watching out from eyes i can not place!

Oh, who am i? kidding.

Cleaning house(a joyful chore!)

now that I am

so much larger

than i perceived

whom is watching

me to BE.

_ /’\_ X I\I

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settle down

27 Jun

When the flow of adrenaline hit the belly

I knew something big was approaching.

I was kicking the dirt

and blowing brrrray

behind the starting gate door.

Small portion fear mixed with ample dollops excitement

ready for the next disaster

sure to be a doozy.

A rough hour in jittery anticipation

until I remembered, oh, the left over coffee,

which you do not normally drink,

in the fridge, was caffeinated,

Lightbulb on.

Dear girl, this morning’s prescient omens

were all a playing out of chemistry

in this reliable and forgiving body.

Simmer down, now, m

All will unfold in its due time –

there is no fire 

or another blessed disaster

in the immediate.

Goodness, how beautiful, the playings out

of body and mind – who haven’t yet learned

who is driving the car.

I can remember 

that part which is beyond the effects of our everyday drugs,

Watching, watching, quiet at the center,

laughing with love

at my overwrought avatar,

hitting again and again the key

we use for GO.

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now-wish

17 Jun

there is

no time,

no desire, but

someone is

hungry for completion,

while also still and happy,

mellowed out

hollowed out

laughing

and watching

whatever arises.

The now wish is

sharing parsley with my friend,

my trippy colored, hungry friend.

 

 

 

…

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garden metaphor exhausted

5 May

I’m letting the root rot open to the air.

holding the shovel at bay,

not ready (yet) for the tender hug

of mulch.

Dirt under the fingernails for days.

The smallest of shifts felt

while I trace a line

between self-indulgence, fertilizer,

and truthful, detached seeing-

walking the rows at sunrise.

 

The birds’ songs and chirps

an invitation to now

to breath

to exposure of even the slightest

inkling of maladjustment,

browning leaves

wilting old growth –

(loved

even so

on her way out).

Meeting needs

as they arise

in the garden outside

and the garden within

is enough.

The world is allowed to die back,

so paradise (undergrowth) can be exposed.

 

 

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longing is a secret door

8 Feb

We only need to long

from our lower bellies

and our furnace hearts,

not from the jumpled frenzy of our thoughts.

Each moment

is the longing for breath,

and blood in veins

to carry what the breath brought in –

to keep us alive to long some more.

However, we are thinking animals

who have wallpapered over desire

with complex patterns.

We’ve forgotten where

impulse

comes from.

At the bottom of all complexity,

we can codify.

Tell me, is this list accurate?

Humans desire:

  1. to keep on breathing
  2. to pleasure the flesh
  3. to distract from the horror that comes from knowing we will die
  4. to keep on breathing

However,

breath will end; it will.

…

(enormous, this!)

…

Then and only then,

desiring the air of another realm

will pull us out of this life —

and though I can not prove anything to you,

I practice breathing and ending breath both;

for when my moment comes,  I desire ease.

I imagine our work on this larger breath can be gifted

to whomever needs it ~ when.

Use it with my blessing,

for I love you

in this breath

we share.

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somewhere along the way

1 Feb

instead of keeping on

with the human interaction experiment,

I started saying no

and dropping out of the game.

It was so gradual,

I didn’t notice when self-care

turned into hiding.

Separate became a theme song,

playing on repeat

on the radio in my head.

Prone felt better than upright,

cozy felt better than cold,

alone felt better than awkward,

and predictable became a slow slide.

The blood began to thicken.

I told myself that I was refusing

to be food for the energy suckers.

What’s new?

I’m ankle deep at the surf’s edge

where

the water is cold,

the air is worse,

but the alternative is only for the bears,

and only in one season.

Spring seasons return,

and probably will again,

but I won’t wait

for it to come to me.

Motion is required

for the body,

but more so, for the mysterious heart,

which can’t be met

until I show up.

 

 

 

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glowing on

24 Jan

 

Joy arrives in the smallest corners

without a script to find it.

Think a bird tilting its head to you in curiosity,

a cat curled up in your pine straw, allowing you close,

a deer pausing mid-munch to size you up

before bounding its fluff tail bum deeper into the woods.

Agenda toward joy can look alright to start with

but it soon becomes a grocery store cake in the mouth,

leaving you wondering how to spit it out with grace.

Grasping at joy is revolting, a fake laugh, an insinuation,

a glomping on – vicarious to the actual fleeting glimpses

we are gifted without neediness.

Don’t grab the kitty by the tail,

try not to join in when you haven’t heard the joke,

allow your own joy to arrive outside the attainment of others,

without needing to announce it to the imagined view of the world.

The original intention that you came here with

is still flickering – and it will not go out until you are gone,

even if you are in jail, or cast out, or inebriated

on the most common drugs of: figuring things out,

escaping your pain, making yourself important,

making yourself small, just

getting through the day, busy, busy, busy…

you know them all.

Even here, joy still visits, and fans your fractal candle.

Thank God, it is one of those trick candles, so blow away,

test it out; it will be here as long as you – waiting to light you

from within – and your inferno will be all your own.

My bonfire on a distant hill

connects the dots toward yours,

making the view overhead of all these fires a truer map

of who is down here,

remembering joy,

no matter where.

 

 

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this or that

24 Nov

we dream that we are choosers–

that our minds can weigh

our lists of pros and cons

and offer us the way for

sensible action.

Lists and justifications and choice

at best

are curtain decoration

for the windows on the plane ride

through turbulence.

We can torment each other with plans for the future,

but we would be better off telling the truth-

that we are surfing

avalanches with briefcases

and nice shoes.

 

The trees have chosen,

after weighing their options,

to drop off the green,

and then to disrobe,

desperate for a little attention.

Those of us alive are choosing breath

after the pros came out ahead.

What’s next tees up

while we color,

like earnest children

with fancy, art store pencils,

in our sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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