Category Archives: Poetry

Acting, Asia, Commentary on the news, Poetry, Politics, Science, Travel, US History

Summer, the American Season

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Friday gratefuls: Mini-splits cooling. A cool night. Good sleeping. July 4th. Seoah’s birthday. Sending her a Jacquie Lawson card. Mary in Eau Claire. The most recent CJ Box book. K-dramas. Stranger. Sky Castle. Itaewon Class. Cod. Potatoes. Collard greens. Herme.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Our Earth

One brief shining: Geez Tom passed on an image from JPL that showed all the asteroids that could strike the Earth and they wove in and out of the Solar system creating a web of white that looked like doom doom doom for the Planet but no JPL says not this century.

 

Learned another one:

 

I traveled to Cold Mountain,

Stayed here for thirty years.

Yesterday looked for friend and family

More than half had gone to the Yellow Springs

Slow burning, life dies like a flame,

Never resting, passing like a river.

I stand in my lone shadow,

Suddenly, the tears flow down.

 

Summer feels like the American season to me. The 4th of July. The Indianapolis 500. NASCAR. Baseball. Family reunions in city parks and on family farms.

For many years I would take the summer to read American history, political philosophy, political analysis. Haven’t done it for a while but recent reading about the far right was the sort of thing I would do.

I also have a modest Civil War jones. I love to visit battlefields. Again, like the summer reading, it’s been a while since I’ve set out on a road trip to visit Civil War sites. Thinking I might do it next year. Visit Sarah and Jerry, Paul and Sarah. This year’s occupied with Korea and Israel.

Let me see. I’ve been to Manassas, Antietam, Shiloh, Ft. Sumter, Stones River, Vicksburg, Ft. Donelson, and Andersonville. Still missing Gettysburg and several others. Enough for a long trip.

 

Guess I could also visit Trump era proto-Civil War sites like the Capitol Building and Richmond, Virginia.

With the Extremes dismantling  years of liberal policy and law trying to take us back to their own future, a dismal and cruel place, learning what the far right wants has become more and more important.

They want no special treatment for African Americans. Even if the special treatment of slavery skewed not only the politics of our constitution but embedded racism in the very interstices of our law and governance. Even if the special treatment of slavery ginned up the falsest of lies, white supremacy. Even if we know all of this for sure.

They want all life held sacred. Except the children born to poor parents or the children of immigrants. Or the victims of mass incarceration who end up dying needless deaths in prisons across the U.S. I mean not only, not even primarily, capital punishment, but deaths of despair, of under treated illness, deaths of families living without fathers.

They want to be left alone in their enclaves of Christian Nationalism or survivalist paranoia or anti-globalist, America first isolation. They want to treat all Federal lands as personal property and suffer no accountability for their actions.

They want guns to protect their liberty from the fascist Federal government while supporting the actual fascists who will certainly take their liberty and impoverish them even more.

They want the libtards to stop trying. We cannot, must not. Ever. Stop.

 

Poetry, Politics, Weather +Climate, Writing

Cold Mountain

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Thursday gratefuls: Great workout. Learning Cold Mountain, one poem a day. A good night’s sleep. Protein. Carbs. Veggies. Fruit. Eat the rainbow. Exercise as a mood lifter. Challenges. Developing Herme. Cloaks. Psilocybin. Spores. Growing my own. A gray day. The Monsoon. Korea. The Hermit Kingdom. The Land of the Morning Calm. Chaebol. Kangim. Keshet. Beit She’an. Good food. Cod.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Hooded Man

One brief shining: Writing again beyond Ancientrails this time a one man short play enjoying dialogue as the only tool well stage directions too beginning to soar again feeling the sun under my wings the air over my head timeless now while I dive into the deep pool below cast a net bring out a flopping sentence or two to advance the story. Landed it!

 

Happy to say I’ve sidewised myself back to writing. This Herme project. Rolling, rolling, rolling. Dialogue advances. The idea emerges.

Second Cold Mountain poem from memory: (well, mostly)

 

One thousand clouds, ten thousand streams

Here I live, an idle man

I roam green peaks by day

Back to sleep by cliffs at night.

One by one, springs and autumns go,

Free of heat and dust, my mind.

Sweet to know there’s nothing I need,

Silent as the autumn flood.

 

Plan to weave together a Celtic backstory, throw in a bit of magic, and a Tarot major arcana archetype-the Hooded Man-with the Chinese Rivers and Mountains school of poetry. Liking the idea of turning it into a one man show. Still.

 

On top of Shadow Mountain sits my home

Lodgepoles and Aspens, Bunch Grass and Spruce,

Cedar siding and Solar Panels outside

Inside I ride out my days alone, yet not alone

Accompanied by the dead and their living souls

By the words of poets and writers, movies

By words from my own hand, written

Yet often unbidden. A man untroubled.

Rock beneath stays quiet, unmoving.

 

Playing now. Having fun. What creation can bring into a life. My life and yours. Who cares about legacy? Not important. Who cares about today, this wonderful only ever never again day? I do! Ichi-go, ich-e.

 

Purple Haze. Nope. This time. Rust colored, apocalyptic sunseen and sungone. Bad air for all. Courtesy of the Ancient Brother’s Sunday topic: Fire. Yet this is also true. Those burning parts of Canada will resurrect, become green again. Yes, their carbon dioxide has gone up in, well, smoke. But the recapture of it on Mother Earth’s own schedule has already begun. We may not be around to experience that rebalancing. But it will happen.

 

I see the Extremes knocked down affirmative action at Harvard and UNC. Expected. Never been sure how I felt about affirmative action. Its intent? Sure. Necessary. How it actually worked? Always wondered how those who were considered admits by affirmative action felt. I know for sure how some white parents and students thought. A toxic mix at best. We’re not done with this work and this sets us out on a different road to achieve results. Perhaps California’s reparations?

 

 

 

Acting, Great Wheel, Our Land and Home, Poetry, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate

A Do Anything Day

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Summer and the Summer Moon Above

Wednesday gratefuls: Tal. His new play. Learning Cold Mountain’s poems. Writing more for my character project. Acting. Acting class. Coffee beans. Coffee grinder. High altitude coffee maker. Writing. Ancientrails. A long road from my past through today. Bill Schmidt for helping me set it up. Allergies. Tree sex. Pollen, Pollen, Everywhere. Ruth. Gabe. Another bright blue Sky. Warm to hot days. The green. All the green. Everywhere the green. Mountain living. BJ. In her own personal Idaho.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth

One brief shining: Life rises from thermal vents, creates itself in tidal pools, wanders onto Land, Seeds allowing Plants to walk away from the Shore, moving and changing as it stretches itself into new shapes, new ways of being until Animals big and small, until humans, now able to look back, all the way back to its beginnings, life looking at itself, wondering about its own meaning.

 

Tuesday. Writing. Finding out more about Gaius Ovidius. About the Hooded Man. About Cold Mountain. Deciding to memorize one poem a day. Here’s the first one. From memory:

Where’s the trail to Cold Mountain?

Cold Mountain! There’s no clear way.

Ice, in summer, is still frozen.

Bright sun shines through thick fog.

You will not get there following me.

Your heart and mine are not the same.

If your heart were like mine,

You’d be there, already.

 

Called the gas company. They wanted to change out my gas meter. Turned out they’d already met their quota. Why would they change it out? Each year a random number of meters get swapped out for identical ones and sent to a testing facility to determine their accuracy. I found that interesting.

Then, Nielsen ratings called. You know, the famous one from the old days of ABC, CBS, and NBC. They’re still doing their thing. But since nobody here was in their target demographic I got a pass from them, too. I found it oddly reassuring that they were still in business. As if the 1950’s will never die.

 

Plunked down some more hard cash to ensure aisle seats on my flights from Denver to Heathrow, Heathrow to Ben Gurion. Easy access to the bathrooms trumps a window seat every time at my age. Couldn’t do the same on the return for some reason. Maybe later.

 

I’ve not written about the Summer Solstice. My favorite part. It means the nights grow longer and the days grow shorter. I do not like hot nights, nor do I like hot days. Some warmer days after the cold of Winter feel good. I’m enjoying the ones we’re having on Shadow Mountain right now, but as they get hotter? Not so much. Why I enjoyed Minnesota and its short summers. Shadow Mountain, too. Cool nights are the difference between a good night’s sleep and a bad one for me. Last night stayed warm for a while and disturbed my sleep in spite of my fan and my mini-split. Feeling a little loggy this morning.

Mountains, Plants, Poetry, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

Mountains

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Rock fish. Panko. Mixed vegetables. Potatoes. Cooking. The Ancient Brothers. Psychedelics. Colorado. Leaning into the new psychedelic era. My green back yard. Vince. Pine pollen on the driveway. The start of allergy season for me. Cold Mountain. My character for acting class. October 8th. Men and aging. Men and grief. A high blue Sky. The curve of Black Mountain. The solidity of Shadow Mountain underneath me. Maxwell Creek and Shadow Mountain Brook carrying water off of Shadow Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The treadmill

One brief shining: A deep sadness on reading in the Colorado Sun of the huge numbers of Elk, Mule Deer, and other wild neighbors who died over the winter due to starvation caused by the very snows which we all celebrated with the Colorado mantra we need the water and yes we do but at this cost I don’t know.

 

After reading that article the deep sadness came over me as I realized it might explain why the bull Elks have not been back for my Dandelions. Imagining them lying dead of starvation somewhere on Black Mountain. I hope I’m wrong, yet this is the first time since 2019 they’ve not shown up when the Dandelions were in bloom. It filled my heart to see their big bodies at rest after a meal. To watch them put their heads down and clip off the Dandelions and their greens. To stare as they jumped so easily from one side of the fence to the other. Perhaps some of their children will find my back. I’m leaving my gates open now, too. No more dogs to contain. Let the wild critters in.

Watching those three grow from younger and smaller Bulls to their majestic full size made seeing them each year even more special. Like everyone one up here, well, most everyone, I want our wild neighbors to thrive, live their best lives. Seeing those Bulls over a period of years gave me a personal glimpse into their lives. Like cousins you see once a year at Thanksgiving I saw them grow, got to know which one was twitchy, which one would spend the night here, which ones would leave and come back the next day.

 

Below are three poems attributed to Hanshan, or Cold Mountain. From this site

Translated by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2006 All Rights Reserved.

This work may be freely reproduced, stored and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.

 

Where’s the trail to Cold Mountain?

Cold Mountain? There’s no clear way.

Ice, in summer, is still frozen.

Bright sun shines through thick fog.

You won’t get there following me.

Your heart and mine are not the same.

If your heart was like mine,

You’d have made it, and be there!

 

 

A thousand clouds, ten thousand streams,

Here I live, an idle man,

Roaming green peaks by day,

Back to sleep by cliffs at night.

One by one, springs and autumns go,

Free of heat and dust, my mind.

Sweet to know there’s nothing I need,

Silent as the autumn river’s flood.

 

 

I traveled to Cold Mountain:

Stayed here for thirty years.

Yesterday looked for family and friends.

More than half had gone to Yellow Springs.

Slow-burning, life dies like a flame,

Never resting, passes like a river.

Today I face my lone shadow.

Suddenly, the tears flow down.

Acting, Art and Culture, Asia, Bees, Commentary on Religion, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Fungi, Garden, GeekWorld, Great Wheel, Great Work, Hawai'i, Health, Hermitage, Humanities, Judaism, Kabbalah, Korea, Latin, Letters, Literature, Mountains, Mussar, Painting, Photography, Plants, Poetry, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Science, Shadow Mountain, Sierra Club, Sport, Tarot, Tea, The West, Travel, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths, Writing

Entheos

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Beltane and the Mesa View Moon

Monday gratefuls: Curiosity. The Ancient Brothers. Mark and Dennis. Coming May 23rd. Yet more Rain. Even more swollen Streams. Ancientrails as a life project. Tom and his time with Charlie H. Bill and his time with Bella. Mark and his time at the gym. Anytime Fitness. My treadmill. Marilyn. Ginnie. Josh. Jane. Kat. A banker. Vulcan Centaur.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Rocket Scientists

One brief shining: A beautiful woman with a long braid dangling over her t-shirt down to her space themed spandex had, on the back of the blue t-shirt an outline of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, on the front ULA and I asked, I’m too ignorant to know but is that a real rocket ship?

 

Yes. She answered. And I was working on it until I quit my job a year and a half ago. What was your area of expertise? Vibration and acoustics. Oh. I see. Not sure why I keep running into engineers. But I do.

CBE is amazing. All these smart people. This was at the Dismantling Racism class yesterday afternoon. Looked up the Vulcan Centaur and it’s been under development since 2014. Supposed to fly for the first time in July. Had a setback a month ago though with a second stage explosion during preparation for a launch.

The class has gotten better. Taking a mussar approach to the work. I like it for the inner work though I chose an opponent for my practice this week. Four areas of possible practice each week: with HaShem (God), with Self, with a fellow, especially a victim of anti-black racism, or with an opponent.

My practice involved an e-mail to a person with whom I’ve had long standing differences. Sent it last night and got a reply this morning. A sweet one. Maybe there’s something to this approach. The middah this week is kavod, or honor. Honoring self and other. The theological idea is the all made in God’s image trope. Said another way, we’re all human, all riding this blue spaceship our only home together with all the other critters and plants. Honor it all.

 

During the Ancient Brothers session on curiosity I identified curiosity as my defining characteristic. And naming what I call the valedictory lifestyle. As a valedictorian myself I’ve occasionally become curious (see!) about what happens to others who graduate first in their class academically. Turns out usually nothing spectacular. Sure a lot go into academics. Some have successful careers in business or the sciences.

But usually no stars. No one off achievements. No amazing inventions. Why? Because we’re generalists. We easily get sidetracked by something new and shiny. If purity of heart is to will one thing, we’re not at all pure.

I call them enthusiasms. My enthusiasms can last a long time. Religion has turned out to be the longest lasting, but inside that broad category I’ve been all over the place. From existentialist atheist to Christian to Unitarian-Universalist to Pagan and wanderer with the tribe. There’s a piece of each of these, often substantial pieces that remain intact within me. All somehow glued together with Taoism.

There’ve been many others. Art, my twelve years at the MIA. Politics, lasting almost as long as religion, but again all over the place in terms of action. Islam which I studied after 9/11. Horticulture. Cooking. Heating with wood. Beekeeping. Dogs. World travel. F1. Science. Tarot and Astrology. Cinema. Acting. Writing. Getting degrees. Tea. Korean and now Spanish. Oh, and one that actually has been lifelong, reading. Not sure when I learned but I’ve never ever stopped. Buying books, too. To feed the habit. I’ve dabbled in painting and sum-e.

Enthusiasms in my life are more than dabbling but less than enough to gain full mastery. But I must admit it’s been, is being, a hell of lot of fun.

 

 

 

 

Health, Poetry, Politics

More medical stuff. Skip if not interested.

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Imbolc and the Valentine Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Shirley Septic. Kristie. Nichie. Monty. Pam. Good lab numbers. Mets. No, not those Mets. Metastases. Prolia. For strong bones. Weight loss. Colorado River Compact. Snowpack. Water. So necessary, so scarce here. The West. The Rocky Mountains. Laurentian Shield. The Huronian Supergroup. Cratons. Erleada. Orgovyx. Award Winning Pet Grooming. Vascular Institute. Ultra Sound.

Sparks of joy and awe: Urology Associates. Has my back.

 

Whoa. 82 minutes for my workout yesterday. And, I mean whoa. Wore me out. In a good way.

 

Over to Urology Associates in Littleton for my three month checkup. The Orgovyx/Erleada combination keeps me in the undetectable range. Still aiming for taking me off of them late summer, early fall. So they don’t lose efficacy for me.

That last point may tip the decision about radiating my two active metastases sites. I don’t want to go off the meds with active cancer sites. Going to see Dr. Eigner on the 20th of this month. Will decide then. Kristie suggested I get his input, too, before I made a final decision. She said it’s a tough call. It is. I wouldn’t hesitate if it didn’t involve my spine.

After my medical consult and my every six month shot of Prolia, I went to see Nichie. A Nurse navigator. Glad. Choppy financial waters. Her specialty. She handed me a bottle of Orgovyx and a month’s supply of Erleada. Samples. Then she took my information and started applying for other possible sources of aid. We’ll give you free samples until we find something. OK.

Not sure how this whole thing turned around, but right now I’m paying very little. I think it’s the case that nobody understands the damned system. We’re all flying blind. Why we need a nurse navigator, I guess. Oops, mixed metaphors.

By the time I got back from my appointment, after a brief stop at Tony’s, I’d been rode hard and put away wet. Got home when the phone rang. Nichie telling me she had my application underway. And a lot of other stuff I was too tired to take in, especially since I was also feeding Kep.

After Kep ate, I sat down and felt overwhelmed. Tired and having necessary, but complicated information coming at me. Knew it would all seem less complex after a good night’s sleep. It does.

Later today. Left leg arteries and veins. Keep those doctors gettin’ paid.

 

I’ll close with this by Langston Hughes. Found by buddy Tom:

Southern Mammy Sings

Last week they lynched a colored boy

They hung him to a tree.

That colored boy ain’t said a thing

But us all should be free.

Yes, m’am!

Us all should be free.

Not meanin’ to be sassy

And not meanin’ to be smart.

But sometimes I think that white folks

Just ain’t got no heart.

No, m’am!

Just ain’t got no heart.

Faith and Spirituality, Myth and Story, Poetry, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Paradise, bad. Tempter, good.

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Lughnasa and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: Feeling almost whole. Paradise. Rental agents. Kep’s legs. The trash. Cooking for myself. That chicken from Rich. French toast. Whipped cream. Ruby. My ride. Kailua. Looking better and better. Or, Kaneohe. Though, windward, tsunami side. Robert Martin. Express mail to Vanguard. Depositing my TABOR check. Healing. The wonder of the body.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Agency

 

Paradise. A walled Garden in the original Persian, perhaps a hunting preserve. Paradise, a walled Garden for Creation, guarded by an angel with a flaming sword. Been thinking about walled gardens we humans create for ourselves. Gated communities. The Garden of Eden, the first gated community.

Our versions of paradise: Religions and their variants. Political ideologies. Ethnic purity. Even our own homes. That castle of our own. Skin color.

Inside these walled gardens we follow the same version of truth. The supremacy of white skinned humans. Submission to Allah. The Presbyterian version of the Christian story. Or, the Episcopal one. Or, the Pentecostal one. Or, the Roman Catholic one. I’m French. Swiss. American. Malawi. Aboriginal. I fly the Gadsen flag on my pickup. I’m a liberal. A libertarian. A Trumpist. A Nazi. An anarchist.

We mold and shape our perceptions of reality to conform to the presuppositions and biases of our walled Garden. This is confirmation bias. Selective perception.

Each of our walled Gardens also has its own Serpent, its own tempter, who hisses, “Eat of this Tree and you will know all.” This tempter might be biblical scholars who created the documentary hypothesis. Or, that little voice that whispers, “Other people with different skin colors don’t seem so bad.” Or, “What about traditions and heritages that give our lives richness?” Or…

There are so many walled Gardens. So many. Each with their gatekeepers, each with their own tempter. Each with their own Tree and its Fruit. What purpose do they serve? Tamping down ambiguity. Making the inevitable choices of our lives simpler. Creating a matrix against which we can lay our life and determine its worth.

I’m white. A superior race. I deserve my place above the mud people. I’m a liberal. The best political perspective. Why can’t those conservatives understand that? I’m Swiss. Sorry, but you’re not.

Easier to decide who to marry. What job to take. Where to live. Who to listen to. What flag to salute.

Here’s the thing though. Paradise was always an illusion. Those walled Gardens keep you in, narrow your world, define it in ways that often are harmful both to you and to others. Those gatekeepers. That angel with the flaming sword? Keeping you in.

That tempter. May be your guide out of Paradise. That Fruit. That Tree. Eat from it. Right now. It will taste good. Your eyes will open to the complicated, messy, never right or wrong world. Your life will become harder. You’ll have to choose without guard rails. There will be cliffs and sinkholes.

Help enough friends to do the same and you can take out the gatekeeper, walk out of the garden, and into the world as it is. As you were meant to know it. Neither bad nor good. Neither right nor wrong. Filled with the riches of people with different skin colors, of other heritages and traditions, of other nationalities, of other political perspectives.

This is the Field Rumi speaks of, the one beyond good and bad. Go out there, past the gatekeeper of your walled Garden, and I’ll meet you there.

Astrology, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Jefferson County, Kabbalah, Mountains, Myth and Story, Poetry, Shadow Mountain, Tarot, Travel

Underneath the bones, my wings are pushing out

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Lughnasa and the Michaelmas Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Susan. The Woolly Retreat. Pruning. Yet more of Kate’s jewelry. Satisfaction at getting things done. Subway. Stinker’s gas. Lodgepoles. Black Mountain. That one forerunner Aspen. Golden. The Stars. The blackness of Space. Four amateur astronauts. New hearing aid. Roger.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The house on Shadow Mountain

Tarot:  Ten of Swords, Druid.  King of Stones, Wildwood. (not sure about these two. for the first time. maybe it’ll hit me later.)

 

Rigel and Kepler

Met with Susan yesterday. She’ll house sit for Kep and Rigel when I drive to the Woolly retreat the first of November. We had a long chat. Dogs. Drivers in the mountains. Cars. She’s a Mountain type. Making a living anyway she can. She cleans houses and dog sits, lives in a rented room in King’s Valley. Almost 70.

Living in the Mountains has a strange and strong attraction for certain folks. Kate was one. She refused to consider moving. I’m one, too. Though. Once in a while, recently, I get twinges of, oh, this might be too much for me someday. Usually in the morning when I’m still sleepy, still not warmed up. But that worm is there.

Still remember the first days up here in the loft. I’d write, then look out the window at Black Mountain. Write. Look. A sense of being in the right Place. Yirah. Awe. When I’m down the hill, hot and bothered by all the traffic, I can turn the car West, head back up into the Front Range. I become peaceful again.

BJ, Kate, Anne at Kate’s birthday party apres eclipse

Kate’s here now. Forever. In the Iris bed. In Maxwell Creek. On the Yahrzeit wall at CBE. In my heart. In the bones and stones of this place. She died a Mountain Woman. Fits with the Earth Mother persona she nourished for over 20 years in Andover. A powerful attractant for me. Keep the memories, the torch for her going.

The running of the fence line is underway. Zeus. Boo. Kep. Thor. Rigel. Rigel. Boo. Thor. Kep. Yip, yip, yip, yip. Neighbors kept friendly by a fence. Yup, Robert Frost.

The day got away from me. I had to change the sheets on the bed, always a good workout. That damned Tempurpedic weighs 120 pounds and concentrates all of its weight right where you’re trying to lift it. Got it done so I laid down for a nap.

In my zoom meeting with my ancient buddies Paul, Tom, Mario, and Bill I checked in. Well. As near as I can tell, I have no tale of woe. For the first time in six months. They all laughed and clapped. Me, too. Yeah.

Of course. Cheer up, things could be worse. I cheered up and sure enough things got worse. Hope not though.

This is six months later. After a lotta upset. Kate’s death, grief, and the return of my prostate cancer. Jon’s various illnesses. Which continue. Sorting through the necessaries after Kate’s death occupied more time than I would have thought. Normal, though. Still not quite done.

As I’ve written, I can feel the tidal forces running with me now rather than pulling me out sea. Provided I can stay well, I think that will continue. Gonna get a flu shot and a vaccine booster in the next couple of weeks.

I also contacted Elisa Robyn’s, my astrologer friend from CBE. She’ll do a new reading for me on Monday, September 27th. I’m leaning in to the Tarot, astrology, Kabbalah world. Letting it speak to me. Call to me. Challenge me. Inspire me. That old skeptic me would pooh pooh all this. Showed him the door. What helps is what helps.

Tom had an interesting exercise for us this morning. He gave each of us a poem earlier in the week. We read them aloud and told the others what we thought.

Here’s mine:

 

The Phoenix Again

On the ashes of this nest
Love wove with deathly fire
The phoenix takes its rest
Forgetting all desire.

After the flame, a pause,
After the pain, rebirth.
Obeying nature’s laws
The phoenix goes to earth.

You cannot call it old
You cannot call it young.
No phoenix can be told,
This is the end of the song.

It struggles now alone
Against death and self-doubt,
But underneath the bone
The wings are pushing out.

And one cold starry night
Whatever your belief
The phoenix will take flight
Over the seas of grief

To sing her thrilling song
To stars and waves and sky
For neither old nor young
The phoenix does not die.

May Sarton

My reaction: I can feel, underneath the bone, my new wings pushing out. And I await the cold starry night when my new Phoenix self will take flight.

 

 

Hawai'i, Judaism, Plants, Poetry

Messianic Times

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Endless Messiah Contemplation

 

Water rippled by trade Winds, an endless path

Travels up, up into the clear blue Sky. Made fresh,

Land its Plants, its Animals drink and live.

Ancient, received not made here, one of the four

 

This Land. Made by Pele as Plates shift, restless, find fire.

Islands alone, contemplating restless creation, recreation.

Land loosens, sifts, smooths, ground fine. Sand.

A place not only Land, not only Water. The Shore.

Like our bodies between our souls and eternity.

 

The Trade Wind. Faithful, gentle, dependable.

A quiet Messiah who reveals the unseen’s power

Who moves the Palm and the Monkey Pod Tree

And lifts the Water into white pregnant Clouds.

 

No slouching toward Bethlehem. No complicated timing.

Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.  Those who need them.

The Messianic times come round through the heat of the Sun,

The turning of the Earth, and the long pilgrimage of life.

Commentary on Religion, Judaism, Kabbalah, Poetry, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

O Sullen God

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Late Wednesday. My Psalm of healing. For Friday’s class

 

A Psalm. A Prayer. A Theology.

 

O sullen divinity of my youth

You took away my legs

O silent god you made me lie down,

Unable to walk. You imprisoned me.

Lord of theft you stole my mother,

Left us without her. Crying without hope.

The abyss swallowed me.

 

And you let me disappear, fade away.

A blanket held in the depth’s chill.

I shuddered, unable to throw it off.

No joy. No walking with others. I stood alone

Trickster god, wielder of sacred bewilderment.

You had me. Oh. You had me.

 

And, I knew you not.

 

After the fallow time had drained the world.

That spring rhizomes, corms, bulbs and tubers awoke.

Shook off winter cold and threw green up, up, up.

Up toward the sky. Crowned it in colors so bright.

Purple crocus, yellow crocus, Grape hyacinth.

Stories of joy. Time to play!

 

The bees flew in and the bees flew out,

Out to the flowers, into the hive. Out to the flowers.

That ground hog high in the tree. The turtle on pilgrimage.

The dogs. Always. Barking, running, bowing, chasing.

 

On the garden bed: purpled beets, white onions, green leeks.

Curved beans, firm tomatoes, potatoes, carrots.

Soil clinging to them. The womb.

How could I not hear the sacred music? Take part.

Twirling as a dervish, ecstasy and freedom. Dance.

 

And you, silent god, still I knew you not.

 

But the one crowned with flowery garlands,

Tasting of sweet food made in the honeycomb,

This god, fried in my skillet and served with eggs,

Not silent. Not dark. But sacred, yes. Divine.