Perched outside my frosted window
Yet another hummingbird dies.
I curse my selfish neighbors
Who hang sweet nectar through autumn,
Who lure them to linger past their migration.
All around me
Hummingbirds die.

Let me make beauty
Let me be beauty
Let me know your beauty

From the void Allah awoke
To sing a single holy note.
His voice gave rise to all vibration,
Spirit song of life’s creation.

La illa ha illah ‘lah
Alhumdulillah Subhanallah

Joined in a Circle we pray his name.
Within the Circle angels the same.
Wingtip to shoulder, shoulder to wing,
Gathered together, together we sing.

Alhumdulillah Subhanallah
La illa ha illa ‘lah

The Sufi heart is a chalice of pain.
Here in secret we hold his flame.
The Sufi heart is a chalice of Love
Filled with baraka from above.

La illa ha illa ‘lah
Alhumdulillah Subhanallah

With a snort
I awoke from a chilly doze
Rubbed my weary eyes
An aching yawn erupted

Christ it’s 2 am
Nothing to show but
This limp little thing
Lying half clothed
On the yellow tablet
A gimp of a poem
One arm missing
One leg too short

Sudden like
She sat ***** said
Oooh, I like Billy Holiday
Let’s dance

NO…let’s not
She insisted took me
In her one arm
Danced me round
Round again the room
Limping
Past the old Sears and Roebuck radio

I admit she was light on her feet
Probably my fault
She was missing a lot
Of words I lost
In the Scotch

She stopped
Saw the jar on the old desk
Gimme a dollar
Shoved it through the lid
I’m dead on my feet girl
Going to bed
Kissed her on the cheek

I flipped off the lights
Left her standing swaying staying
Wrapped by her one arm
In the dark
Nina Simone sang on

Have you too
Loved and lost
A woman?

Mine is named Annie.

Can you name
That pain
That never ends?

Mine is named Annie.

Does your heart beat
Still a name?

Mine is named Annie.

Can you name the time
Your life had meaning?

Mine is named Annie.

Does a woman
Wake you from your dreams?

Mine is named Annie.

When you pass into the Light,
Do you wish a love?

Mine is named Annie.

Left sleepless adrift
Beneath moon and star
I sit in cataract haze
Mired in candlelit murk
A snifter of port is no port
For this shipwrecked heart
My pen falls from fingers
Onto words unwritten

‘Tis autumn
And the blood of God
Pools in root that sleeps
Amidst worm and toadstool

Vain woman
Autumn swirls her air
Leaf plucked from trees
Of Saint Anthony’s Fire

And they scream from the bleachers
Every first down

The oldest cabin in Baring
Sits every May
In the roar of the raging river
Skykomish

Yesterday
We watched sunlight
Rise from the rapids
Rise up the bank of evergreens
While birds flitted near
Flew swift from twilight falling

The chill night
Brought a thousand stars

Morning brought relentless rain
The knotty pine walls
Are comforting
As I sit in the old leather chair
The heater at my feet
Reading a well thumbed
John Grisham paperback
Someone left behind

My coffee is rich and strong

I was seven
That day we waded the south fork
Of the rushing Stillaguamish,
Cousin Mel and I,
Each a hand tightly grasped in
Father’s.

We had pitched camp
Amongst the crumbling foundations,
The sinking brick paths,
Near the still standing chimney
Of Big Four Lodge,
Once playground of the wealthy,
Once only reached by train.

We climbed the dusty, steep,
Old, old trail.
Together we stood reviving
In the chill breeze
Of the cave,
The tons of ice overhead
Melting drop by drop
To fall on heads and shoulders.







Blinking, back in sunlight,
We watched reflections shimmer
On a small pool.
Father having dared,
Clothes shed,
We jumped into that mirror
Of heart stopping
Melted ice field,
Screaming, scrambled out.

We ate Mac and cheese
Hot off the white gas stove
That eve,
Hot dogs charred in our fire.

As dusk fell to darkness
Far from city lights,
We lined in shared anticipation.
Chins and eyes skyward,
Father gripping elk hunting field glasses,
Our vision darted
Horizon to horizon,
Searching, searching
A thousand and one stars.

Look, look!
A hand shot up, pointing.
We shared the nation’s fervor, fever
To spot a speeding satellite,
For every night held that dawn
Of the Soviet/U.S. space race.

We kids
Slept in the open,
My parents
In the big green canvas tent.
‘Round midnight
Mother woke us
With a wild yell,
A big, fat bullfrog
On her feet,
Its eyes found with
Flashlight.

Four years past
I paid a visit on death

For days
I knew not where
The when
I knew the why
She would disappear

A fifth I drank
A few pills
Well a lot

Comatose she found me
911
Hell followed

Told a friend…finally
You were so lucky!
God’s work!
Into chill silence I fell
Stared, finally
“Yeah he’s one cruel
*******”

High aloft,
Deep in leaf,
Talons locked,
Lest he sleep,
Crow is perched,
He guards their keep.
Unseen, all seeing,
His eyes must know,
Who is friend, what is foe.
Those dawns I cross
The cold bare floor to
Barefoot step
Through kitchen door,
Rising to the skies I hear
My secret raucous name ring clear
As Crow cries out
For Clan to hear,
Friend is here,
Our friend is here.
Then such Love and joy I feel,
And peace of heart
The Night to heal.

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.

Age 17
I slip quiet through kitchen
***** blind for bed
In the 1 am night
Forgot the golf *****
I left lying there
One by one
They roll, they bounce
In a staccato poem
Of Oh hell
Yes, he flings door open
“Any more noise I will get my belt!”

Deep bellows roll ashore,
Climb the hill and spill from
The Bowl that is our little town.

Their charts crossed
In deep of night,
Still lost to fog
In morning light,
China clippers headed south,
Commerce stacked from deck to skies,
East/West ferries packed with souls,
All ships boom out warning cries,
For maritime fools are sure to be
Lost to port, who cannot see,
Without radar wandering,
Sailing on our Salish Sea.

No little cat feet here,
This  invasion from the sea
A thousand ninjas, maybe more,
A racing horde of cloud,
Blimey the milkman swore
The only warning heard aloud
As these chilling shrouds of fog
Climb the hill and spill from
The Bowl that is our little town.

I watch,
For I am you
And you are me.

I watch.
I dive, I surface,
I spin the horizon round,
Yet round again. Sky wide
I stretch my arms, my eyes,
My very Heart for you.

I watch.
I know your pain,
The tattered, little scraps
Of memory, the
Longing, oh God
The longing for our long lost
Home.
Did we not polish our hearts
To sacred chalice,
Pray and sing
Each ancient chant?
Now,
Like sounding whales
We stink of sorrow.

I watch.
I know the moments
Fierce yearning gnaws the gut.
Walking sticks you gather,
Wind and water silvered,
Wood turned twin to
Our own bones of stone.

I watch,
Let loose a tear.
You check your pouch of Medicine,
Your hoard of magic words.
There are fallen stars For Beauty and for Light,
Shark teeth and lobster claw
For cutting and for pain.

I watch.
The ceaseless longing
Pulls you from the Sea.
You climb the sands,
Climb from sight,
My wandering pilgrim
Leaving sacred word pagodas
Upon the foreign land.

I watch.
This day do not die into the Night
That passes into Light.
Return to me,
Return to us.
We are all but little waves
Rising and falling in and out of
That great ocean of all,
That ocean of Love,
The One.

Return Adriana.
I am you.
You are me.
I will touch your hair and
Whisper in your ear.

I will sing to you like Orca.

You are the long, long shadow
Lain across my life,
Lain across my heart
Where memories of you
Lie like old curled parchment
Desiccated of joy
But not of sorrow.

Please
Take my hand,
Step into my light.
I long to see your face,
The count of joys
In lines radiant from your eyes,
The count of sorrows
In lines falling from your lips.
Do I rightly remember
Your eyes the color of
Norway fjords?
Is that shining fall of hair
Now grey entire?
Are grey your days?

Please take my hand,
You were once the joy
Beneath my touch.
You were my light.
May my lips touch yours
With a tenderness I owe you,
So much time has taught me.

Let this not be the end of us
A dust rag taken to
A few old memories.

Where are you
My final love?

I swear true
For you alone
Shall words I write

For you alone
My heart beat

For you alone
My fierce caress

For you alone
Laughter and tears

For you alone
My final death

Where are you
My final love?

In jagged twist and turn
That slices air and
Makes my heart yearn
Full winged they land

They hop about
Peanuts they seek
I rock in my chair
With each dip of beak

When they take to flight
They carry my soul
Out of its night
Into the Light

They go in great gusts
Words lost
Like autumn leaves
to the first winds of winter

So many
Impossible to count
I had to be given the word
Count which I could not remember

I had to be given the words
Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration

I will lose myself
In little pieces
Some quick, some slow
This they tell me

When I

Lose the word smile
Still will I smile?

Lose the word laugh
Still will I laugh?

Lose the word love
Still will I love?

Lose the word weep
Still will I weep?

Lose the word grieve
Still will I grieve?

Lose the word beauty
Still  will I see beauty?

Lose the word death
Still will I know my fate?

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

Ferry rocks on waves
Teddy bear reeks of *****
Seagull soars past me

There are worlds upon worlds.

We came here under contract
To forget.
Yet does your heart not hold
A whisper of home?
Do you not feel a longing
For return?

We endure this dark way station,
Where pains and sorrows
Multiply.

We think we learn of love
In all its many forms,
Yet we drink a weak brew,
The taste of real Love
Forgotten.

Here we turn around,
To retrace our footsteps
Through the universe of Spirit,
That ocean of Love.

With joy we join our caravan
Of forgotten friends and lovers,
Our tribe of gypsy souls.

We bang our drum
And sing of our return.
Again we travel
Joyful,
Begin that endless journey,
Shall navigate the
Timeless Realms,

Our compass ever pointing
The way to
The One.

We may linger
Here and there,
There are worlds of such beauty.

But Creator
Ever calls to us,
Come closer to my Light.
We grow ever lighter,
Shine ever brighter
As we answer the call.

Our destiny a homecoming,
Now purely of Light,
Beings of Spirit,
Welcomed by angels,
We join their chorus

Ever rejoicing
In orbit of
The One.

We are Light
Gathered and bound
In water and salt.

Once
I loved a woman,
Traced Andromeda
In the curve of her ear,
Counted stars
On her freckled face.
I took delight in her smells,
The desert of her hair,
Ocean below,
Her sometimes pungent embrace.
Her hungry mouth
Held our love of garlic.
I gave tongue to worship at her lunar altar.
While our toes mingled,
Fingers entwined,
We spoke into the night.

How could I not know of God?

Often beauty is relative to need.

Four or five pints
And the need is sudden and intense.
That long trough of stainless steel
Filled with mounds of gleaming ice
Is one of the nights most beautiful sights.

Do you see this community of souls
Clad in tattered rags of light?

This is my family.
Some of us are broken.
Some of us are healing.
We are all damaged.
But unlike those in the outside world
Who judge us,
Even spouses and siblings,
Teachers and preachers,
Each with a tongue
Like a judge’s gavel,
We never judge one another.
We each give kindness.
We each give compassion.
We hold out a hand.
We love.
We laugh.

Do you see this community of souls?
This is my family.

In the long dark hours of night
Snow fell.

I stand four stories tall
Upon my tiny deck.
With joy I breathe the air
So cold and sharp
I feel cleansed from cell
To soul.
I sweep my sight down and back
The long line of fir and cedar,
Elder trees of a hundred years
Standing shoulder to shoulder,
My most constant friends.
Today each wears
A wrap of white tall and
Glistening in fall from the sky.
Brides of Christ?
Travelers of the Haj?
Or just old friends of the Creator?

Eventually I look downward
Upon a world made pure and simple,
No print of foot nor tire
To mar the snowy blanket,
No voice to mar
The icy silence.

I lay out food for my other friends,
No doubt hard in need of energy.
There is seed for the little ones,
Juncos, towhees and thrush,
Chopped peanut for crows and jays,
Suet for all.

This snowy morning
Creator sings
Of her creations.
Can you hear her?

There is no matter
Only waves of energy
Autumn leaves feel real

Did you awake a little blue?
Grandma’s cocoa fix is tried and true.
Spoon two big heaps into your brew;
Quickly bid those blues adieu.

I love
My little room
Entire silvered by dawn.

Tossing into trash bin
Yesterday’s coffee pod
I toss out yesterday’s cares.
Inserting a new pod
I turn the page
Of my small life.

As the Keurig brews
That first cup
It sounds a shush:
Quiet be, still be, just be
Look at the cedars and firs
Glowing with the
Fire of God.

So I sip
Coffee and chill morning air
And rock my rocking chair
To the rhythm
Of birds at the feeder

All else can wait

I mourn
The mornings gone,
Waking to the cold,
Bare feet on hardwood,
Firing the furnace,
The smell of strong coffee,
Two cups placed,
Climbing back into warmth
Beneath the Pendletons.

I mourn
The mornings gone,
Lazy hours abed
For a family of four,
In winter coats
Jake, Shady
Upon our lap and leg.

I mourn
The mornings gone.
I would read her
Fascinating finds in
Scientific American,
Smithsonian.
She would pretend
To listen.
In return I would
Refill her cup.

I mourn
The mornings gone.
Is not love
Two cats, a man
A woman,
Content together as
One,
Content to hold
The day at bay,
Content to just be.

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

You are my moon

Your moods wax and wane
With pages torn from my calendar

Your beauty not constant
Bewitching at your fullest
When you reflect upon me
The light of others
No heart shine of your own

The days vary
Each I long for nights
When your pull
Upon my tide of blood
Raises it up
To wash my mind’s shores
With foaming scour
Majestic power
Leaving my morn strewn with
A drift of storm wrecked feel

But those moods!
When you wrap yourself in cloud
Hide for days
On end, until
I wish to kneel in desert sands
Beneath, before another moon
Constant

It was ever your voice, always
That voice,
Soft and gentle, a trickle of freshness
In a dead place,
Soothing as the bag balm Mother
Smoothed on wounded calf legs.
That voice, your voice,
Without words,
even while speaking other words,
Always said to me
I won’t judge you,
I could even love you,
I see you, yes you.

YET

You seemed much to hide,
Holding your schedule askew
From others, which
I often wondered of, yet
Even standing nights before
Your door,
My heart found no Faith
That you lived in love of solitude.
For I, I lived hating my solitude,
A solitude of loneliness.

Thank you sweet Andrea,
For bringing me that saving voice,
For giving me your soft hand.
It felt so right in my hand.
I heard your stories with gratitude.

I see you Andrea, I do.
I see you.
I feel I could love you.
Let me try.

Evening

Whoops and hollers
Torn from tongue
Were gale flung
Back toward the village

If only soiled laundry
Stained of my poor choices
Whipped from
My clothesline of memories

Homeland of Makah
At nation’s far point
Upon that final ****** of stone
We stood atop its
Plunge into sea

Twilight gripped like
Prayer shawls
We could not hold back
Moon nor stars

Home with wind East
Shabby trailers
Stapled to the earth
Chained dogs
Feral felines
Hulks of auto
Appliances abandoned to rust

East toward the dawn
Sunrise and tide
Westward rolling
Sands swarmed with
Seekers
Out of last of night’s
Shadows seeking treasure
Even a glass Japan net float


Noon

In left hand
The map sketched on
Paper torn from
A patient’s chart

With right
I swung pack over shoulder

A cove held secret
By nailed drift and
Rusted anchor chain
We descended

In high sun
On sands, on blanket spread
In the wind hiss of surf
Naked both
Nancy taught me
Arts of love
I tongued her to screams

Night

The moon
Pulled flame into the sky
The hiss and spit
Of burning cedar
Stars!

With radar and chart
Ships cut the night
To round the point
Into the straight
Tacoma, Seattle still hours off
Firelight said a pilot

Lit with lantern
Our shapes writhed and moaned
Upon the thin tent walls
Only a raccoon to see

I slept the dream of Orca
Half brain
Still upon her skin
Her lips

Toward the morn
I slept the dream of Orca

Pray for Death
As she walks our halls.
Pray she tap so softly
Upon each chamber door
Where angels long prepared her visit.
Pray her breath is sweet
When she whispers,
Come my love, it’s time,
And pray her hand be warm
As she guides each on the way.
And if you think Death capable of mistake,
As I do not,
But if you do,
Pray the taken Soul
All the sooner,
All the closer,
Be clasped to our Lord.

I sit in candlelight,
Old, sad ballads
On my turntable,
Thinking of you,
Writing of us,
Playing the pathetic lonely artist
In his garret.

We were watching Disney when
You ran into the night
Never to return.

No longer mine,
I guess you never were.

My glass holds 
A measure of gin
That never measures drowning
The measure of my loss
From your two feet
Out the door.

A first date,
I held open for you
The door of my Chevy.
You held open not only 
The door to your heart
But to your family,
The only I was ever to have.
As one new to love
I loved them,
Sure even now
They loved me too.

Do I need tell
How I loved you?

My daughter walks 
The backstreets of my heart
But will never walk the Earth,
For life denied me children
While you treasure a daughter
With another man.

Like a drowned man 
Drug ashore,
I thought all memories 
Of our life together
Dead.
But like a lifeguard’s hands
Those letters
Brought them back to life
In a mighty gasp,
******* in joy,
Coughing, spewing sorrow.

I cannot hate you.
Tell me
Please 
How to live 
With loving you
Still and Forever,
You I never,
You still 
I may not have.

Memories are like snowflakes
So fragile
Each unique
So easily destroyed
Especially those of Love

Hate not so much

I have a thousand
Upon a thousand
Snowflakes of you
I have kept them in the darkest
Coldest corner of my heart
Where they have never melted
Never will

What shall I see?
What now will Beauty be,
Naked,
Garbed no more in words.
Syllables scattered and tossed,
Language now forever lost?
What of my soul, what of me
Searching for meaning never to be.
What shall I see?

Yeah
I added a new name to
The 99 names of Allah:
*******

Yep
I pray to *******

At 2:00am I scream at *******
What do you want of me?

What do you want *******?
Take me home or
Show me my purpose

Give me a partner *******
To fill this pit of loneliness

I pray with anger
I pray to *******

Every duty placed in my path
I tried to fulfill *******
I now deserve better

Take me home *******
Or show me my purpose

Thus I pray to *******
The 100th name of Allah

That house held a secret,
Perhaps many,
Perhaps the explanation
Of why plowing the pasture one day
Father unearthed a human skeleton.

It was built by homesteaders,
Had held the lives of
Three generations.

One entered through a spacious kitchen,
Immediately encountered the wood cookstove
Which also heated water for the bath to one side.
A spacious pantry lay to the other.

It made me sick and chilled
To enter further,
To pass through the front room,
Grasp the worn wood banister
And climb the stairs
To the long silent dimness between bedrooms,
Peer into their darkness.

It’s bad mojo
To lose one’s shadow
And no one ever saw their shadow
In that dark house.

I wish I could have taken Pepper in there.
Dogs know.

For forty years
Nightmares of that house
Lacerated my sleep.

Recently it was burnt to the ground,
Training for firemen.

A new thought came writing this.
All my life I suffered dreams
Of demons,
Demons possessing me.
They ceased as well.

Perhaps my peace lies in
Those ashes.

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

Die before you die
Be in the world not of it
The drum a heartbeat

Three months now,
I have counted carefully,
More than enough.

No need for silence,
No need for stealth
Down these hallways.

I await.
Come to my bed.
I so desire you.

I know you as no
Dark spectre
But maiden fair
With merry laugh
And sweet breath
To whisper in my ear:

Come take my hand,
‘Tis time,
Now is your parting
From all things false,
We shall part the veils,
Such wonders shall I show you.

Past the cows she said
While in cast in pain I lay
Cancer killed your dog

Who knew
The seventh floor of hell
Holds a view
Of red roofs,
A curl of saltwater,
A distant tower crane,
Baker over all.

Molecules of
Oxy and ethanol
Fall from receptors.
Blood levels plummet.
Straight down to ground
I gaze,
Contemplate
A fall to end it all,
A plummet into grace?
An end to suffering
Forever.

Through seven gates
Flows
Our self of such illusion.
Best not to close those gates
Oneself.
The finger of time
After all
In but a blink
Will flick them closed.
Blessed then comes
Reawakening of True Self,
Remembrance of true birth,
In the Timeless Realm
Of a million gates,
And no gates at all.

And in seven days
I learn to cut meat
With a plastic fork
And a plastic spoon.

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!

I was ever stone
Upon the granite peak
Allah gave me frost
Into the fissures
He dropped seed
Wildflowers grew

Asleep I ever flowed
Allah placed boulders in
My Path
Now my rapids sing of seas
I know my destination
That Ocean of One

My heart was ever desert
Unfit for even camel
Sorrow, pain and suffering
Allah placed before my eyes
I wept and knew compassion
My tears a garden grew
Of kindness and of giving
To others duty too

I thought I knew love
Wife, children, siblings, cats
That song by Leonard Cohen
All a weak brew
Allah took, took, took
Gave me loss until
I turned, I drank of Him
Then He alone I loved
Then He took my love

Lord of every universe
Designer of the jinn
Stars and moons and Light
Space to put them in
Out of nothing He awoke
Sang a song of all Creation

There is only the One
He was I
I am He
All is made of Love

There is only Love

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.

Much better,
Once old enough to lift split alder
To grandfather’s truck bed,
We were taught to retreat
To deeper woods,
Sit hanging over mossy log,
To wipe with fresh plucked leaf.
But beware the nettle
And devil’s club.

Seven decades come and gone,
True love has found me late.
It seems I love another’s love,
I love my best friend’s mate.

She always greets me at the door
With kisses and a twirl.
Sometimes she leaps into my arms,
Makes my heartbeat go awhirl.
Then I have to hug and hold her,
Ask her is she still my girl.

When I stay a day or two
She always finds me in the night,
Slips abed beside me silent
Never stays ‘til morning light.

Oh god how I love her.
True love has found me late.
It seems I love another’s love,
I love my best friend’s mate.

This girl has the biggest heart,
A blessing from above.
She gives to all she meets or knows,
Her God given love.
I don’t know what she sees in me.
Sometimes I feel such shame.
Just like all the rest of you,
We’re pretty much the same,
We learned to hate, not freely give
Love given in His name.

But I swear that I do love her.
True love has found me late.
It seems I love another’s love,
I love my best friend’s mate.

Am I making you uncomfortable
But you don’t quite know the cause?
Or perhaps you’ve guessed already.
Pepper has four paws.

I met her as a Sheltie pup
Straight from the litter.
My job is mostly ball thrower,
Sometimes I play sitter.

Now almost three
She’s honored me;
I’m number two in her pack.
She makes me feel like number one.
How will I ever pay her back?

For never will this girl be mine.
True love has found me late.
It seems I love another’s love,
I love my best friend’s mate.