Category Archives: poetry

Veiling/Un-veiling

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What will it take

this journey that is already fulfilled –complete –honored

what will it take to begin this journey

as if there is no end

 

And what will it take

to live within each step

as if the placing of these feet

on hard or soft or bogged or bright ground

 

somehow will right me –restore me –save me

from what I am and am not

as if there is a confusion there

carried through these eons of loss and gravitation

 

There is None No-one who says

what can be done or not done

There is no one marking the way

not as yet as I can see

 

And yet there is an encounter

something real and palpable

and perhaps mistaken for real

–the light can cast in myriad of ways

 

In the mists veiling my own Silence

words curl around the nooks

of my bones and flesh –lighting down

making a landing, offering solace

 

These words here now –parched –dry

picked up as breadcrumbs

but it is simply unknown who or what

left them here –was it me? –was it You?

 

This quandary calls out the insight

the timeless continuity of All That Is

what comes before when there is no beginning

and in no end –what conclusions might arise?

 

Taking it off –taking it on

covering and uncovering

placing and wait as grace returns

Emanating Silence –this brilliance like no other

Falling Through and Between

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The cracks have been opening up –here there and underneath

what used to be on top –like cracks in a hard crust of soil

once baked by light, deluged with raindrops, more light

 

These soils are a community of their own

sometimes thirsty sometimes paused in reflection

such that growing things are made temporarily mystified

 

Would it be that something elemental is missing

Or amongst all the bystanders perhaps readily available

like implicit memory waking up giving signals of many orders

 

The dance is moving so quickly, agile or not, positron wave

falling through and between perception in pure fluid motion

bridges created as life itself, timeless free fall, magnitude of silence

“Throw Me a Line”

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I will throw you a line

if you ask, beg, and plead

 

For that one you implore

is not only that which is

you/me/no other – us both!

 

So I am not helping you

out of lack or distinction or

tacit agreement that somehow

you are flawed or lost

 

But through earnestness

of that which we are both

 

And in that way, the very line

that I throw to you

upon finding your way

will simply dissolve in hand

 

As that hand is found to

no longer belong to any

other than Who You Are

What We Are seamlessly

 

You have thrown yourself

that very line that somehow

seemed unavoidably to come

from “The Other Not You”

 

And in that aggrandizing

how strange but true

you have increased your own

stead, but that very place

is none other than the All

 

Can you not see, but no worries

if the answer is “No” for the no

and the yes co-abide, the yes

seeming to throw its line to the no

and the no seeming to grab ahold

 

And in their meeting, both certainties

of self limitation dissolve in union

 

This Union that is no more deliberate

than exiting from the hall of mirrors

after having had our fun, our pleasure

casting shadows, shapes, and distortions

 

“Throw me a line,” you say,

and I will not refuse to play

in that sacred hall of mirrors

I say, “Throw me a line!”

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~ thank you to the Gene Keys community online, friends near and far, visible and invisible
p.s. please click through to the above linked image “hall of mirrors”… did not want to publish a photo that I don’t have permission for, so it’s waiting there for you online on its home site 🙂

Twine of Earth and Sky ~ Beholden

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if I could open all the mysteries that daunt

would there not yet be another mystery lain

at yet another level or circuit of my being?

 

what of this earth and sky that is not seen

but felt in the bones and in the electrical pulses

throughout this finely tuned cutting, this scion

 

what am I cut from and what does carry me

in these ways that have many names, one

of which might be apocrypha or rubric lost

 

we have come upon things inexplicable, yet

somehow we are not at peace nor openly greet

that which is beholden to vastness and fire

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we have looked upon our own center, that void

where the eye cannot see nor rightly focus

something of what we are, a purity in depth

 

and simplicity simultaneously defies convention

all things gathering and also falling around

this shockwave that has no compass or steer

 

perhaps that is the mystery, somehow we are

free of place and time yet conjure it still as

everything we do and say, playing at substantiation

 

we catch ourselves again and again in the folly

of needing to know how to come and go

when in coming there is the going ~ no distance

 

Twine of Earth and Sky ~ Bless of Being

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The tides turn and turn, shifting

but still there is little to scour

 

Flotsam is not splayed about

upon the beach-like shores

 

Yet light glints off a found face

sparking brilliantly its presence

 

This seeing is by an eye observed within

of the heart cracked with a new interiority

 

What of this seeing  when it doesn’t match

any concentrated sense of what it is to exist

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Does that suggest that this light, the glint

from within, is false or imagined somehow?

 

Heartily no! This shine is even brighter yetIMG_20150729_193458476

as it is seeing that has gained its illumination

 

We’ve somehow always known we see partially

whether we look closely or beg far-sightedness

 

What once remained mute in its invisibility

cascading like dark matter in vast space

 

Now is our epigenetic wonder and remaking

solace of grace and forthrightness of splendor

 

 

A Letter As Separate Self Dissolves (photo collage)

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A Letter As Separate Self JPEGDear Followers of Contemplative Fire,

Thank you all (especially for the recent followers in 2015, who I haven’t had a chance to thank yet!) I have just created the above collage version of a poem of mine from back in February to share with a community, which I am part of, who are meeting in person soon. This photo collage version of my poetry is BRAND NEW for me.

Thanks for the help in getting it posted directly on the blog, Adam!

Blessings and love to you all!

5 HAIKU poems

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Twilight bestows light

Amongst the branches touching

Caterpillar crawls

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Winter dark ocean

Another realm submerged there

Breathing nothing drowns

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Sit-upon stone cold

Newness of life awake, dancing

The dog returns home

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Light in the wood cast

Falling and also rising

I am that I am

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Cherishing like earth

I soak in the springtime rains

Instantaneously

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25, 26 May 2015

Gasp

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There is the simple fact
of seeming to exist
within one’s own skin

How so fully do I agree
and also not agree
I can barely keep track

There is my pleasure,
which is the simplest kind
–existing as existence

And yet when life creeps
under my skin and dwells
there, I may call it pain

I perceive myself
but not directly —
these sense perceptions

Are the farthest thing
from direct after all
the lifetime of filtering

The screens clogged
and overloaded with
debris lodged and collected

What of it?
Can I see true
and/or dream real?

What of the attempt?
On the precipice of
forces consternating

In that collision, can 
like forces co-exist
without turbulence

Transcendence arrives
with the interfolding of
subject and object

15 May 2015 ~ San Cristobal, NM

The Hourglass

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Something is so tired

The eyes want to close

The attention drawn inward

It is as if nothing belongs anywhere

 

Even tracing that which notices

feels like sand falling down

the neck of the hourglass

only this hourglass is timeless

 

So fall and fall again

I am fascinated that we ache to

collect ourselves in the falling

and make as if we are solid

 

What I call falling might be

indiscernible to others. But is

not that fear’s trace broadcasting

its signal creating that unknown?

 

Fear seems inherent in this falsely

time encapsulated existence

Yet we, ultimately timeless, can see

ourselves and somehow fall awake

 

|T͟His| |kəˈlīdəˌskōp| |mīnd|

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kaleidoscope – ORIGIN early 19th cent.: from Greek kalos ‘beautiful’ + eidos ‘form’ + skopein ‘look at.’

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Liken to say, this mind is none other than a kaleidoscope perfection

Yet we are smitten as we hold it in our hands, forgotten the play,

The game of it and perhaps become lost in the grip, such that hardly

Can we imagine it as apparatus and instead have taken it –mistaken its

Images, patterns, colors, forms, fragments –appearing oh so beautiful–

 

As ourselves. Yes, we are Beauty, we are Awareness. We appear as form,

Yes. These fragments are ever changing, the mirrors and advantage of

Perception affords great visage; what is it that holds on often desperately

Within some fleetingly grasped image and makes that a home, a dwelling

Of such import? It is more of a cataclysmic order than actually discerned.

 

We have our reminders, however quickly we cast them aside, not even

Momentarily pausing within the recognition of this vast and luminous

Undisturbed emptiness –the very emanation of Beauty we are. Beauty,

Formless as breath, sure as spirit, belongs to no one thing, and seems

To hover in the midst of these objects that we think, we spin into existence

 

Borrowing the least palpable matter for that split second alighting upon.

What is it that compels the grab, hovering as mistake, again and again?

What is it that seems so lacking that we persistently gather at its feet as if

It actually exists separate from us? Are we not twisting something out of

Existence that we have made up, an impostor of the grandest order?

 

What is it that you are playing at? Just in this moment, see it plainly.

You, author, conductor, composer, director, is it feast, famine, crusade,

Epic, adventure? What aspects of life have the spotlight? Is it thought itself?

Is it death? Is it physical suffering or perhaps, elation? Is it powerlessness,

Betrayal of everything you/we are? Does creative spirit take the bow here?

 

And as quickly as the kaleidoscope turns, so do the images, appearances,

Along with the notions of who and what we are somehow separate from

Everything else in existence. Pause, take the apparatus in hand, look and

See that which is looking, holding the focus –not to denigrate or disparage.

Celebrate the kaleidoscopic perfection and rest, rest easy, rest as Awareness.

 

Absolutely all and everything is on your calling card, any order, any dance

Partner is available and already dancing with you. How magnificent the

10,000 things! Any one thing is all of these combined without any fixed

Combinations, nothing locked into place. Simply fathom this myriad! Play.

And breathe beyond recognition, simply experiencing What Is. Carry on.

 

San Cristobal, NM

28 February 2015