halos

he was one of the tall ones

speaking carefully

walking quickly

laughing, at times, easily

but vexation came

quickly to the dark wolf.

Avoiding assoilment

he tended to circumvent saints.

still he hunted goodness.

hankering: can't all that

damn intelligence

construct more than

speeches reports invoices -

grains of sand

when we need to move mountains.

sometimes captured

by the unexpected -

a strand of music

circumventing a star

Intrigued

by the ghost of her halo

shining through her eyes

rippling through her fingertips

dancing along the thin thread

that both kept lightly strumming,

He wondered at their music -

did he think it would last

this long?

how did it move in her body

when she let herself be

enough?

Really - do we seek beauty

in one another

or that the shape of our

wantings

the aching restless emptiness

find a-holding?

of course what is

that beauty

if not justice

and what is justice

if not darkness

held

transfixed

by a halo

of wholeness

shimmering?

veni veni

(I)

most mornings, grey,

we don't even hear

ourselves harking

like angels

who have forgotten

that the mortals

are listening

unaware, not blissful

we flutter the wings

of our imagination

our attention hovering lingering

over strangers - rejecting/conforming

passing in and around friends

going through and between Desires

as if Eros

wasn't actually right there

taking notes, granting these

semi-conscious wishes

torn from unconscious patterning

You what is your clearing?

what have you not cleared

that such messiness you generate

you who are nothing less than

Precious

Named for the very depth

of your being:

veni veni

evoking

So is this how we summon

one another

into Being:

Calling one another forth

by those sacred names

Dignity Joy Beloved

Friend

Fostering the Movement

to carry us

as we piece together the pieces

of our incompleteness

into some imperfect Wholeness

Nudging the tender creation

that can rise above, poised

and Reflect --

onto the darkly chaotic Waters.

Such tender work, this boldness

requiring the inner harbor

and the arms

of One - and another.

funny how even now i keep

wanting you though you

are clearly on your side

and i on my side

i put you there after all.

funny how even now i

check my emails

or my phone

half-expecting

a missed one

but the one i'm missing

never really left me

(H)e

is right - t/here if

only i would stop

looking

for your name

as if i ever

*really*

wanted

you.

Requirements of the cheerful order

the refrain ends with:

turn around right.

Towards what?

Returning -

to the truth.

Truth: live on a finite planet carrying finite beings.

Truth: to survive, much less thrive,

in a changing climate is to transform

production consumption governance

the house i call home.

Justice.

Foxes warning: ‘keep your testimony against the world’s vast fashions.’

be plain.

Not 'fashionable' ‘green’ -

talk like leaves that easily blown away

Fashion: easy. – easy food, easy relationships, easy work.

Easy come – and easy go.

Where is the nourishment? the ground?

that which is most - profound?

The meal:

cornbread, homemade

a fresh tomato-and-avocado salad - red and green and

lightly salted.

dahl, smooth and rich and properly spiced.

a mushroom risotto, homemade chutney, yams with rice, local cheese, local apples and grapes. And extra rosemary.

Rightly ordered?

Is your stew prepared

to save you from those binges of packaged meals?

Is your week planned

around the local shops and farmers markets?

Is your advocacy geared

towards the right order of the planet

for substantially more enjoyable and delicious eating?

ah, the radicalness of simple joy!

Awash in the nightmares of climate change, despair is easy to come by – and not to be avoided. Only in facing that despair do we risk any hope of coming into the next opening.

Alignment: no sugar. no caffeine. no booze.

Alignment: good work, paid. more joy.

self-discovery: tantamount to the practice of simplicity.

Alignment: essence mirroring essence.

refrain from all that leads to scattered thoughts, diluted meaning and the slow painful reduction into mediocre lives.

I crave good order

The ‘essence’ of Spirit I seek remains clouded.

so much daily footwork

just to clear the windows – even to

lift

the shades. I

seem unable to discern

alone.

Our meal

seasoned well with those

occaisional, spontaneous moments of silence.

Then, I knew we were traversing

further afield than the limits of our physical selves.

in turning towards the truth of the limits to growth,

we turn towards the truth of the limitlessness

depth

of fellowship

that continually, collectively delving deeper

into our own essences can bring us.

(reflecting on the day)

life is strange yo...

complexity and simplicity

bubblin rivers n roarin brooks

spewing emails and falling leaves

creating the old

facilitating the professionals

professionalising the facilitator

hpyocrites and saints

and what-the-hell

seeking dynamic stillness

Grace, like Beauty, Arises

Tumbling, broken

into wholeness.

10 years on

Papa said: we will never be the same.

I tried to understand

Absolute State Changes

To wrap my head around

a future that would never resemble the past.

'we will not falter we will not fail.'

except we did falter

we did fail

our innocence drowned

between two great oceans

did we 'export enough hope and optimism?'

now....dim dim dim as we look in

Trillions for a hornet's nest in Iraq

for 3,000 americans - more than that, now, gone

Unity temporarily achieved - heros in fire-proof yellow

Commerce-shopping gained; then that shuttering Crisis

our own Reserve becoming an Enemy causing a Meltdown

Fiscal shudders overseas sweat barely remembered

As children watch their mothers

standin beneath unemployment signs

Outlined by an Eastern light from behind that old Rising Sun

but the light is chilly: we fear the Dragon who feeds us.

a new world, a new world.

Arab's bright spring flowers

stuck into the guns of those strict Regimes

a new world - a new world.

do not miscalculate the 'ultimate result'

they say

but what is ultimate

and what is the result

10 years of war? 30?

a generation - gone?

a warming world that will never change

back again?

a new world, a new world.

And the changin'

its only just begun.

cloudscapes

to paint this morning's momentous sky

give me a brush

made of falling leaves and apple skins

a box of colors

from lavender flowers and scented rainbows

a canvas

of textured cotton balls and white leather

silver gray white

dancing rain and sun

no blues here

just

the delight

of change and change and change again

the sky the color

of horses galloping on the hills

of a german philosopher who wrote social revolution

from a circular reading room.

the color

of sheeps' bleating and children playing

the season of partridge and game and beginnings

oh lord i aint

no stranger

not to you

not to you

not on the morning of such sky

that holds such glory

as thine eyes upon us all -

even as we cry

Beautiful

let yourself be

beautiful

early morning sunshine

knows no boundaries

of clouds -

he

stretches color beneath them

an array of pinks and glories

the steadyness of the sun

between so many other uncertainties

this at least

moves

the same.

the beauty of the dawn let yourself

stretch

out of bed and

laugh

at the craziness of your thinking

that today is the same as yesterday

and that tomorrow

has any bearing on either

let yourelf

be beautiful

as you

embrace the women

who stand at the doorway to

hell

(the one you created) youre still

beautiful

my love.

capsizing sap

(Totems:)

He'd take the brook.

She'd take the boat.

Neither of them

Sailed.

But both owned

a fine pair of telescopes

and enough laughter

to keep them bubbling

along bobbing.

She'd been long

in the forest.

In the woods the sap

dark molasses

moved slowly.

She had plenty of incentive

but the

sap

seemed immune to the forest fires

not so far away it kept

a slow pace

a thickness

a tear in slow motion.

as if she didn't have to change

at all.

He, a wanderer.

How thick was he, anyways?

Would he narrow down

enough to be here

widen up there

substantiate himself

long enough to be anywhere

Value someone else

out there?

She still

hadn't taken

the test

to measure It.

she didn't really

want to know

what she already knew

that was

the way of destruction

the old one

had told her so.

and back when she didn't know

she believed

and when that belief

ebbed its way into truth

she couldn't recall but it was hard to

change the shape of the knowing

even if it was bleeding

her dry

Recognising the dryness

he took her out

on the waters.

she capsized

and then stood up

laughing.

he kept chasing her

and then falling in

she managed to only knock

one other team player

over

really quite victorious

for someone as

new as she but of course being fresh

she could change direction so (too) easily

the water flowed so quickly the wind

blew

and she blew

with the wind

the thrill! the boats

raced, tilting skimming slicing

their way home

wall and boat:

collision

no matter. she was

no longer

the viscosity of

sap

thick quiets

Are we playing a game -

who can keep quiet the longest

before breaking - speaking?

You'd win.

(you win most games you play.)

(or is it just chance, and i'm

restless)

I'd prefer

to focus on

playing.

---

(Spoken, just for the record,)

I can do silence.

I and the rest of us -

all those

little silences

bowing to convention

the silence between

the complaints

and the kvetching

and the networking

when really nothing

is happening.

into the room: such grumbling

into their late-day conversation

my innocent questioning

of their mutterings on matterings

do you not know what you are doing?

Oh, its not the doings

its the beings

that are so troubling

really who is this Team?

So much stuff but Who

are we?

What histories had been lost in the

doings

so much chatter. Reports and workshops

like hammer and nail

the silence around the Matter

Thickens

like shovel and gravel and six feet

Under.

Repetition as our only permanence.

Breathing, Running. Breaking.

The words change but too much else stays the same

yesterday's poverty's today's inequality I

wonder at the silence on

ownership and the arrogance of assuming

anyone is listening.

Their game:

talk fast hard loud

in certain places at certain times

Repetition of key words

Changing those phrases (environment - sustainability - strategy)

to produce: the same (new man in the corner office, darker colored skin)

the heavy viscosity of the system that

really doesn't move

rapidly transitioning language

leaves the spaces between each note thick

those dark silences

of too many values-priorities untouched

unmoved.

---

When I turn off the lights

finally find a rest

for fables and neurological burn-ways,

there is a wind outside my window

that passes sweetly around my lips

i wrap Silence around me You

old lover with Your

arms and presence

as thick

as the sweetest lavender-scented honey

such glorious viscosity

that sinks into the depths of soul

quieting all else until we find Ourselves

gently carried

home

water falls

Sometimes the world really is flat

And ships go over the edges

of waterfalls roaring into darkness

And the sea monsters

Swallow them

Whole.

And then, the next moment,

the world is round again.

You are simply sitting there,

breathing.

At the bottom

Of the sea monster’s belly

There is a lake

And on misty days

You are not entirely sure

If the warmth

Is his digestion

Or if that really is

A sun-stroked land

Up ahead.

People come and go

As if all of this is normal.

Maybe it is.

Really, you are still multi-dimensional

Still substantially round.

Yet too much is flat

(and hot and crowded)

Too much is slippery and smooth

Untextured

Un grown, untendered.

That fraud - the clean blank silent slate:

As if the past never happened.

A more accurate truth: we are aging.

There is a callus

On the ring finger

Where his band

Used to rest –

Even in his absence

even in his aching quiet

He is still there.

In the morning

The rain came.

The waters we sail on

Fall from the sky

(where we were once dreaming)

Onto all of us sailors

Blurring distinctions

Between sound and

silence

keep it simple

he said he had no need

for drama.

i was about to say,

me neither

and then suddenly

i wondered.

if i had habitually done

what we too often do -

so much drama.

Simplicity:

when we have no choice

because we have already chosen

we have been chosen

and we know ourselves as

spoken for

we know the sweet sound

of our own name

like a ripple

without a wind we

seek a centre and a

movement.

somehow there has come

a clutter

like a tyrant

of an ostrage.

i want no more of it.

no more of this angst

turmoils of unproductivity

looking wanting yearning

bring it to me now

front and centre

no need for hiding.

it is in love

that we are

found

betwixt betweens

on the edge of the green leaves

comes the beginnings of the red

in the midst of a mid-day, sun-drenched walk

the rain comes swiftly

sunrise turns grey, grey turns pink

apples fall into my hands

pears overflow my pantry

snakes relish the damp and the slowly falling leaves

in the morning

my bike seat

is wet.

He came back brown

fresh, muscles well used, tendons stretched

pleasure sought - found

his stride long again - there is something new.

purpose?

ah luvlie,

she said, you've done so much

she said, you've changed.

she said, its just beginning.

I've watched the leaves turn.

now i think they never stop turning

its just one big ol' turn

yet another hue

for the next chapter and verse

of the season.

am i turning red too?

my tan is fading.

the call is clearer -

Simplicity.

Beauty.

quietly surprised -

there you are (again)

working. are you well-tethered?

i wonder where is your wondering.

are you alligning

your own turning a bit slower - is that a glass of red wine?

leaning-easy, overlooking drifting leaves

onto the street corner's brook

the bees are fretting, honey-making

they feel the sharp winds gathering

and our hive - fretting, hallucinating

markets turmoiling

they say we don't have much time I'm

oddly grateful

if the world is collapsing at least I

am experienced

in picking up the pieces

practiced in building

from the shards of broken sentences

a house of poetry

and laughter