Wovoka I wish
Drum chant dance ‘neath sun and star
Brought warrior conquest

She wept at Disney
Her feet ran into the night
Never more my moon

The travelers have passed you by
Singing and dancing their way to
Paradise
They have waved
Come join!
Don’t turn away
Sip a little Hafiz each night
Before pulling the starry shroud
Over your sleep
Then come
Banging your drum
And join our saintly caravan

Like the caged homing pigeon
I yearn only for release.

From the timeless realm,
I once chose time.
Radiant with light,
I once chose darkness.
Plucking from the tree of life,
I once chose to suffer.

As a dervish of the One
Here I chose to wander.
As a dervish of the One
Home I chose to forget.

Yet

I stood by the birthing bed,
I sang in sorrow
When Spirit married blood.

When death’s mourners passed,
I danced with joy
At the sunder of Spirit and flesh.

As a dervish of the One
I began to remember.

With the eyes of Allah
At suffering I laughed.
With the ears of Allah
At laughter I wept.

I turned my face toward
The One.

I learned to let go
Of all I loved.
Then I let go of love.

Exiled,
Imprisoned in time,
Like the caged pigeon,
I yearn to fly home.

I pray,
Release me.
Let me go home.

Before seeds went into the ground, they harvested wheat.
Before there was an ocean, they strung pearls.
While the great meeting was going on about bringing human beings into existence, they stood up to their chins in wisdom water.
When some of the angels opposed creation, the Sufi sheiks laughed and clapped among themselves.
Before materiality, they knew what it was liked to be trapped inside matter.
Before there was a night sky, they saw Saturn.
Before wheat grains, they tasted bread.
With no mind, they thought.

She is my lover
Of a thousand moods.
I never tire of gazing upon
Her long lithe body,
Her head pillowed
On mountain slopes.
She the mercurial
Keeper of wind
Which come Autumn,
She will swirl just
As a vibrant young woman
Will swing a muffler
‘Round her neck.

I awoke to almost silence,
Sipped Italian roast
To chase away the barefoot dreams
Painfully afoot within my heart.
Stepping onto the deck
A tsunami of awe
Washed with wonder
My heart clean again.

The night’s stormy anger
Had torn
Every star from the sky,
Atop endless wavelets
They now adorned
Her morning robes.

I whispered her name
Wenatchee.

It was the steepest hill
Ever I knew.

Named for my great, great
Grandparents,
The Lords,
She was family,
Especially when snow fell in winter.
Not only neighborhood kids,
Adults too sled her.
Such was her reputation
That we had to endure the arrival of
An occasional station wagon
Full of thrill seeking townies
With their shiny, new
Department store sleds.

She refused to don an asphalt coat
That steep she was.
Coats of gravel just pooled at her feet
So steep she was.

One sunny, summer day
Cousin Mel and I stood
High upon her summit.
His legs straddled my beloved
Three speed bike
Fully equipped with hand brakes,
Narrow rims,
And leather saddle.

I gripped the bare steel bars
Of an old wreck borrowed.
No brakes? said I.
No brakes! we shouted to seal the deal.
Even in the foolish loose life of youth
I was an all in kind of guy.

Oh we flew!
Flesh and steel as one,
We flew!

In my young life,
Not in a car,
It was the fastest I had ever moved,
……For twenty seconds.

It was pure joy,
……For twenty seconds.

Then her feet of pooled gravel
Seized my front wheel and
Shook it the way my dog Lucy
Killed garter snakes,
Seizing tails in her mouth
And whipsawing the creatures with
Shakes of her head so violent
Their heads parted bodies.

Time stopped.
I lay dead.
Is not complete cessation of breath
……Death?

At last time did return,
Kept measure of
My drumming pain.

So as well did breath return,
Shallow, weak and wanting,
Unable yet to loose a scream.

My sight returned,
First black, then grey,
Then technicolor.
I saw Mel’s face so
White with fright.

Awareness returned,
As did feeling in my
Skewed and skewered limbs,
All atingle and in tangles
In my bier of broken brambles.

Movement returned,
Mel gave me a hand,
Tugging at my body,
Helping me to stand.
It seemed to take forever,
Even working together,
To free that stupid bike.

I lifted up my t-shirt,
Pulled it free
Of blood and dirt.
Those bare steel bars
With a slash made a ****,
Ripping flesh from my chest
Clear down to my belly.

We walked.
My front wheel was as strangely twisted as
My fifth grade school teacher
Who liked to push a hand down the back of my pants.

Strolling our steel steeds homeward,
Passing neighbor’s porches,
I was seized by a sense of surreal dread.
I saw one woman press hands to her head.
One mother jumped
Clear out of her seat,
Her mouth fell gaping,
Her gossip fell silent
Down at her feet.

My own mother ran into the street,
Seized me roughly by both arms,
Panic poured stinking from her pores
Like the sweat of one gripped
In the throes of malaria.

Even I was startled by my first look in a mirror.
It was clear I entered those vines headfirst,
Encountered numerous thorns,
Which tore a multitude of cuts
All about my face and scalp,
Areas rich in capillaries whose
Only purpose seems to be to bleed,
Then maybe bleed some more.
There had been enough red rivulets
That one could be excused for thinking
I had somehow survived
An **** of bloodletting.

But dang, my belly sure hurt!