East reaches out its petaled fingertips
meeting West in the center of the garden.

If only we knew then what we know now.

Trust the generations.

We are here to breathe. And to love.

One morning in India, I learned
what I am remembering now
folding soft brown blankets,
beginning my day.

Taught by example, without any words
as brightly-colored fabric
flew deftly into perfect folds.

However simple our home, we honor it
with our care, to its walls and floors,
to ourselves, the people living within.

We honor it most of all with the words
we choose, with the silence we keep,
defining our lives in each simple moment.

Folding back winter clouds, resplendent
with color moments ago,
a prairie wind clears the sky
honoring this one and only today.

Our greatest human treasure
the risk that delivers us
without giving permission
for further hurt

The eastern sky glows
just long enough
for its colors
to heal our hearts

As a truly holy man travels
among us these days
spanning differences
living his convictions
we are nourished beyond
boundaries and beliefs

Forever and longer, from
a time long before this one,
we are souls drawn together
in a rare and deep love.

Not always seeing eye to eye,
always, eventually, seeing into the
heart of each other, into the place
where being is all there is.

Our bonds of blood,
and an ancient, hybrid  
ancestry braid continuity.

Breathing into the starry interstices
of this infinite correlation, living
within this web of connectivity,
we are never fully apart.

You are my brothers, and forever
will not be long enough to love you.

A small boy with dark eyes
grew to dream, and invent.

Toys for the children of the
world, and for us, your own.

What began as a limp
took over your whole body,
robbing the light inside you.

Before it did, one winter
evening, you taught me
to ice skate. Around and
around we went, on
the small circle of our
frozen swimming pool.

My mother called us
in for dinner. Usually
obedient, I pretended
not to hear. Something
told my young heart
that this would never
happen again. Around
and around we went,
father and daughter.

You gave us your
native land, and your
vision that invention
could create a life.

The last time I saw
you, it was to feed
you a favorite dish.

As I turned back  
from the open door,
your eyes met mine.
A steady, direct
unfamiliar look.

It was good-bye.

There was nothing left
unfinished between us.

May we touch the infinite compassion
that is there within us all,
and the whole world will
feel our healing light.

May we be our most loving selves
with one another
in your memory,
Ernesto.

Blessed journey,
brave poet brother!

Into the Light
of perfect,
Infinite Love
we commend you,
Ernesto.

Your sisters and brothers
around the world,
we embrace your spirit
always, and forever,
Ernesto.

When a newborn princess was
given your name, I smiled to myself,
"This child is in good company!"

On this warm October day,
fruition of good season
is in evidence all around us.

It is here with us in you,
dear Charlotte.

Raising sons, raising daughters
learning, teaching, first these
children, now their children,
and so many, many more.

Compassion and tolerance
find a rare and special home
in you, dear Charlotte.

My best friend's mother,
your deep wisdom,
lovely devotion to God,
bloom all around you.

Nourishing me so profoundly
these many, fortunate years
with your radiant, steady love.

Today is your day, Charlotte,
and wherever we are
we celebrate you!

Our hearts are made wiser
kinder, and stronger, by
all that you teach
simply being
you
dear Charlotte.

This simple sauce: twelve blueberries,
water, vanilla (no, I'm not going to tell  
all my secrets!) was everything I have
learned about celebrating frugality.

A red-headed woman, my young mother,
shining elegantly at a cocktail party
in a dress made by her
own delicately beautiful,
strong hands.

One three dollar silk remnant,
purchased in a little shop full of
cardboard boxes, each bursting,
to overflowing with fabric, and
texture, and color, high up on
Upper Broadway, in 1961.

Wrapped up tight,
held in your light.

Find me now, vaulting through these years of loving
that only you and I have ever known.

Only this brimming, milky
sweetness...

Beyond familiarity, you and me, tumbling
again through lifetimes of just knowing,
fully feeling, without ever calling.

Held in your light,
wrapped up tight.

Only our brimming, milky sweetness,
eyes closed, and minds wide open...

Wrapped up in your light,
held so tight, dear full moon,
my own cocoon.

My neighbor's fine husband is home.
Whirring and hissing to a stop,
like some fairy tale benevolent monster,
his huge, unhitched truck cab
shudders and roars one more time
before being subdued.

Wearing this magnificent blue color
subtle enough for an evening gown,
it dwarfs the silver pickup
parked in front of it.

Almost breathing in that heady,
pungent, earthiness,
even if it's only in my mind.
All over Santa Fe, New Mexico,
folks will be roasting
this year's green chiles,
and I am feeling
an unexpected ache
for a place I thought
I had left forever.

By some unintentional thievery,
we had a high desert day today,
way out here on the prairie.

Low wind, cooling, and
astonishingly dry.

A blue, deep as high-altitude
cobalt. 
Well, almost.

The woman, still no taller
than a child. The brother,
still kind, still stubborn.

Thinking, sometimes out loud,
the memories coming to each
are sometimes the same ones.

A family working together
in the woods they loved.

This younger brother, so
small, smiling to himself
as he carried kindling.

And the quiet brother,
there too, deep thoughts
widening his hazel eyes.

Maple leaves, still green,
and whirligig seed pods,
pile up now in these
brown paper bags.

Many mornings now,
as day opens its sky eyes
to early sunlight,

Silence pervades all that I am,
or might ever want to be.

Speaking is natural, and life goes on,
but for the tug on my heart,
to go deeper, ever deeper
into the ocean of silence.

Ancient lands of my ancestry
are calling me
to come home now
and
be near the sea.

My own sea, salty and blue,
red rocks plunging
into stormy union
with ultramarine.

Be that I was selkie, I was mermaid,
I know these places where I lived and loved,
breathing underwater in perfect, silent freedom.

Perfection, a sidhi,
might be,
to live as a sadhvi selkie.

Knowing timelessness
through ancient, silent wisdom,
feeling, loving, living
and swimming in unboundedness.

You were young enough, and precious enough,

To get away with it.

I might not get away with it, but

I’m going to hide my shoes anyway.

So that I never have to leave the home

I have found in your heart,

my dear new, and ancient, friend.

Compassion training ground,
telling so many stories.

A delicate blind child flutters like a young bird,
as I transcend into meditation across from him.

A handsome young prisoner is wheeled in,
orange jumpsuit identifying only part of him.

He sits in that wheelchair, head held high,
chains on his ankles and wrists.

Allowing judgments to pass him by,
he lives in his own interior world.

Some hybrid of grace and shock coexist,
when one we love faces medical uncertainty.

My hands are resting
on my knees
touching
the thin white silk
that surrounds me

A flower which is also a light
blooms in each palm

The flowers are pink
I think they are lotus blossoms

Glowing colors spread across the dawning day,
one week after you departed our world.

On this quiet street where nothing happens,
tragedy happened to you, and those who love you.

The man driving his truck couldn't stop in time.
He will never forget involuntarily ending your life.
I saw his face registering what he had done.

We pray for him daily, and for your family,
who lost you so suddenly.

I have never known a gentler soul.

Now that you are fully in the Light,
your voice, your soft, smiling laughter
come to me frequently.

I hear you saying, and it feels very real:
"Live fully and sweetly, as I have done."

We will never be able to reach a state of total
comprehension of all that happened
on that day when our contemporary world shifted
in mystifying and unfathomably terrible ways.

Perhaps the only hope we have for the evolution of our humanity
is to humbly remember and accept
that almost every society in the world
has committed unspeakable atrocities against others.

This has been worst in the nations that have achieved
and been proud of
the greatest technological advancement.

The time has come to open our eyes and our hearts
to one another.

The time is here.

The time is now.

Held in the hands of the women of the world
is all that was and will be.

In her tiny, newborn hands, reaching out,
feeling the air all around her,
is curiosity, openness, freedom.

May is always be so.

Our mother's hands hold
healing like none other, when she
is centered in her own heart.

May it be forever thus.*

Women's hands gesture, gracing our most
ancient and sacred of dances.

And drive trucks.

And do surgery.

And gather healing herbs.

*In the hands of all women is the healing of the world.

Flickering indistinctly, like the last reel
of an early silent film,
these blurry shadows of windblown leaves
project themselves into
the corners of this simple room.

Inside my mind is another room, lit by intuition.

It is here that possibilities are delicately considered,
weighed, ever so gently, for their potential as eventuality.

This is not to say that my heart never holds sway
in these measured evaluations.

Oh, yes. It does win, from time to time.

Life is just sweeter, I have found, when peace reigns
between these two old friends, and a mutual accord is reached.

From where I sit in this bicycle rickshaw
everything is in motion.

Balloons, massed into colourful clouds,
ride in the rickshaw just ahead.

Brahmin cows walk by, unconcerned
by the tiny cars speeding and honking.

People of every age and description
walk towards the stalls and shops.

From where I sit in this bicycle rickshaw
pale pink sari fluttering around me,
all is completely still and silent,
*even as everything is in motion.

Full, flat, flowing
this old bend
in the river
gives peace.

Would living
beside it
bring more
peace?

Or would
a hunger
to see more
end that?

Heavy lavender blossoms, lifted
by sudden rushes of night wind.

Jacaranda, her scented branches swept into
dancing alone under the only streetlight.

Hiding further in the dark, bushes of
kumquat fruits, ripely orange,
tempt me to taste them.

In the deep blue air, first stars create
orbs of light beyond themselves,
glowing hugely in the sultry, silent sky.

Clouds this morning
ridged like
sandbars
in
very fine
sand
in the clear
shallow water
of
a very old lake

Whirlwinding into a
  warm, sudden updraft
last, pink, pale petals
find each other, swirling....
Blushing once,
they flutter down,
  brushing the earth,
nesting back into gravity.

Clear sun on the bedroom wall,
Doves cooing secrets outside.

Here in the kitchen,
bright scent of orange oil
as it’s skin gives way.

I'll open just one today.

Animated patterns of light and dark,
quavering here on the wall beside me.

Through this window glass
from another century,
denuded branches
dance --
But only apparently.

grey white
sky colours
deepen
into being

*we are not forgotten
we are always loved

Flash of lightning fuses
a moment of dreaming
with momentary reality.

As I drift off again,
rolling thunder finds
all the cells in my body.

An ancient prayer moves
through my mind,
and before I know it
inner vision has found
a new story to see.

Zellie Eugenie, embodiment of  French elegance,
  consummate graciousness of a native Texan,
a lady ever and always, so delicate and so strong.

You are still my role model, Nana,
even far away, where you live now.

Your voice stays vibrant in my heart,
even after all these years of you living in Heaven.

It was a summer afternoon, expansive, warm,
like the residual, slight drawl of your San Antonio accent,
when I brought a little bucket of these dark, juicy berries,
picked from your own tree, into your sunny, quaint kitchen.

My parents were rarely away, so this time
when we could just be the two of us,
me staying in your ruffly, cosy guest room,
was treasured by us both, and each.

This, as it turned out, would be the day when I learned
to bake my first pie, beginning a life
devoted to fine cuisine that still stays at my core.

Your hands, feminine and capable,
skillfully gathered flour and shortening
into the shaggy, powdery ball of promise
that establishes each new pie crust.

I think you taught me then how to use tapioca,
added to the berries, to soak up some of that
deeply purple juice, as this first pie
bubbled to completion in your well-used oven.

Every time I use my mother's solid maple
rolling pin, sliding it forward on my palms,
I am one with her, and with you.

Do you get to see each other in God's home?

Or do you live in different neighborhoods?

All I know for sure is that you both reside,
forever adored, respected, emulated,
as best as I know how, inside of me...
from whence these tears pour, blurring
what I can see of what I humbly write
to bring you closer to us, way down here.

Zellie Eugenie DuBarry Downing Regan Wright,
your courage in following your heart, and withstanding,
as you must have, the criticisms of a world, of a society,
that likes to put us in categories, especially as women,
still informs my own courage under similar circumstances.

And so honour and admire any and all couples who remain together,
loving, supporting, respecting one another,
while allowing each other to grow into more of themselves.

Some of us, having put everything we have into each,
yes, each, of our marriages, have yet to reach the place
where we are on equal footing with our one true beloved.

May the dear Lord continue to watch over us,
as we bend and search and grow, and may we, too,
even much later in life, know what it is to be happily married.

The sweetest smile, and all for me.
Loves come and go.
She stays on.

Smiling into the night ahead,
long dark hair
spread out widely
on her pillow, slender
arms resting
on all that softness.

She is the one who brings visions
in the depths of night.

Lucid clarity
and saturated, unknown colors.

Unvisited places, deeply longed for.

She tells me about the life within everything.

Underneath these words she gives me,
are sacred, and secret images,
abiding in silence,
abiding in vast inner space.

At last,
she is loved.

And she is listened to.

The sweetest smile, and all for me.
Loves come and go.
She stays on.

Smiling into the night ahead,
long dark hair
spread out widely
on her pillow, slender
arms resting
on all that softness.

She is the one who brings visions
in the depths of night.

Lucid clarity
and saturated, unknown colors.

Unvisited places, deeply longed for.

She tells me about the life within everything.

Underneath these words she gives me,
are sacred, and secret images,
abiding in silence,
abiding in vast inner space.

At last,
she is loved.

And she is listened to.

Across town, a train whistle sounds
and I drift away again.

Early morning sleep,
healing a delicate heart.

Several states over, my best friend
begins her day, so much
goodness given,
and always.

The challenge in this season
is to find the fullness
in emptiness.

Early in its life, this grand old tree
decided to grow in opposite directions at once.

Not exactly conducive to longevity
my beautiful, leafy friend.

I know.

You have seen many of us,
also our marriages, our families
trying to do the same, impossible thing.

Inevitably, the weight of years, the pull of gravity
splits us down the middle, leaving us with a fatal wound,
like this one of yours, old friend.

Recent, rogue storms,
torquing you with gale force winds,
have opened fresh, damaging splits.

Even your own generous embrace of the sky
has left you open to disease where you are weakest,
as are we, dear friend, who have stood in your shade
imagining you destined for a venerable old age.

It is not to be, not this time.

Already, limbs are being cut down to lessen the risk
to the neighbor's roof, and to the skulls of passing pedestrians.

Enough of you will be left,
as the chilly nights come on,
for you to blaze out
in generous, leafy glory,
one last time.

Full heart to full heart,

                                   Clear quiet mind to clear quiet mind,

                                                 Ocean to Ocean.

                                            Blossoming with Light,

                                                  The Pink Lotus

Resides in Readiness

Patient, Happy.