Pale winter sunlight
pours over my left shoulder.
Swelling gibbous moon
lodges itself,
lives here,
for now,
in my tiny chest.

A collaboration between Elisa Maria Argiro and SG Holter.*

Dear feather. You fell on my heart.
I keep you on my person now; pocket held;
An eternal companion.
As beautiful as you, I remind my
Thoughts to be.
I wake up as Buddha every day.                  
Peace is the corner stone of my breathing.

Dear Last Crescent Moon,
adorning Lord Shiva's brow,
smiling toward Morning Star
enjoying her sweet presence
in clearest predawn light.
She smiles too, drifting into feathery sleep.

Birdless flight, unclenched, un-
Clung to.
With this dew drop in my palm
I need no ocean to swim in.
How can Life's castle, with its wars and
Tragedies, hide within its
Towers of                                                          
Nois­e such quiet chambers?
Paper sails, bamboo, emerald waters.
Single feathers rest even when
Airborne.

From your outstretched palm,
sweet taste of morning touches
my tongue, oceanic dew drop
sharing itself across floating time.
An offering holding the last shining
starlight of this new morning. Drifting
now through limitless space,
finding words in our common language
on your yellow paper sails, we gaze down
from these towers of our ancient dreams,
emerald water below us waiting to catch
the falling feather.

Dear insight.
Light as the wind itself, you
Floated; fell on my heart.
Merged with heavy memories
Like paper balloons rising;
Tsunami of kamifusen
Render my whole being
Weightless.
Third-Eye-Hindsight sees me
Remembering nothing with
Bitterness.
One or a hundred lifetimes
Wandering.
Finally now,
Even waking hours feel like
Dreaming.

Dear Wisdom, Guardian Planet,
Buddha's radiance shining.
Thousand-Petaled Lotus
is now your own effulgent mind.
Smiling, eyes closed, feeling the
glowing kamifusen of magenta,
scarlet, turquoise, and yellow
floating above us,
we swim so deeply, diving down
into these warm emerald waters,
winking at the luminous fishes
dreaming all around us.

Like a small bird
gathering bright objects for her nest,
I am gathering life.

Hands which reached out to me lead me on,
so I left at their bidding
for an ocean in the East.

Traveling through the night
as if lost in a waking dream,
I came at last to her proximity
and slept in an unknown room.

In the morning light,
beyond the highways,
I suddenly saw her, all April morning
blue and still.
Ocean water bathed my feet,
rinsed the crystal beads and pearls
I had worn to greet her.

Deep in the woods now, I see temples everywhere.
In the woodland light, some churches are.
Pagodas of bark and moss in the filtered light,
Ice caverns blue and still begin to melt
beside the waterfall that thunders down,
breathing mist in our faces, garlanding itself
in rainbow light.

In the small city airport
I am folded into the arms of my mother-of-pearl.
Salt water flows easily from my eyes -
like the sweet nectar filling my mouth.
"E facile per le farfalle di volare, sai."

I walk out into the grey-wet airfield,
screaming sounds of engines.
Walking forward, I close my eyes,
and the world is only light.

Now, I have come back to you,
with marzipan, and peacock feathers,
and stories of my adventures.

The light blazes, and the stars
send down their song.

The Universe is singing.

Juicy persimmon of the color spectrum,
you wait, as paint, for the right brush
to give you an imaginary life.

Live it up! Dance in all your glowing
intensity! Ultramarine now offers you
cooling shade, and a respite from all
that you so vibrantly are.

Two hundred years ago and yesterday
a sailor wrote a letter in longhand,
entrusting it to the road
back to his beloved,
where dawn was breaking
at the closest port of call.

A century ago, a shy and lovely
mail order bride wrote
to the man who would be her husband,
in a land entirely different from her own.

In her delicate, sincere questions, from a
heart wrapped in ornate brocade layers of
kimono silk, she hoped to begin to know him.

Relationships formed gracefully, over time,
an ocean of water and thought intervening.

Water and air may be there
keeping souls apart,
until they are meant to be united.
 
Now, two beloved young friends have found
in each other a twin flame, first seen shining
in the virtual world of today. With only letters,
or flares or morse code, these two would have
seen, and known, that light within one another.

Souls destined from very early on.

My loving eyes have seen them, decades from now,
leaning into one another, silver hair entwined
as they rest their heads together on one more journey.

I defy anyone who might challenge me,
seeing these two blossoming in love
from a virtual, chance encounter, 
to say that life is any less real
in the ways that matter most,
when it is born in abstract space,
in this manifestation of a reality
that is in itself a metaphor for
Reality.

Reality, is living,
deeply living,
the inexplicable,
unfathomable,
exquisitely simple
complexity,
of being fully human.

Angels, wings
sometimes broken
in service to a higher good
will always walk among us.

We are the ones who feel
almost everything.

Squeezed like sun-warmed
wine grapes, pressed
like fragrant coffee beans,
distilled like kilos of flowers,
may these memories of our lives
become good poems.

Before the light comes,
the wind comes.
The wind of God.
The wind of God travels
all over the Earth,
awakening the night-sleeping birds,
bringing freshness to every land.
New hope, even where we are troubled,
or grieving, or suffering.
Often these days, this wind of God
blows through my open heart.
And it frees me to love totally,
to love innocently, to love bravely,
As God loves us.