Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
Stephe Watson Jan 2021
I believe I believe
I believe in the stars
I believe in the sound of the rain
I believe in the seas
I believe in the ear on the track and the sound of the train.

I’m no monk
I’ve no gasoline can
I’m no protest symbol
I’m no match for the believer with struck match
I believe in the unseen support of the choir
I believe we can sing out, shout out, or flame out
I believe we can’t tire out or put the fire out
I’m no monk
I’ve no match
I’ve not set myself afire.

But I believe
in the echo’s return
But I believe
in a soul fire’s ash-free burn.

I believe in the felled forest
I believe in the dissipating clouds
I believe in the march without rest
I believe in testing those testing us
I believe in the pains cried aloud
I believe in the speech no longer allowed .

I believe in the unvoiced voices
I believe in the tentative choices
I believe in the scarred bark
and the broken branch.
I believe in the disease’s footprint, this burl
I believe in the taproot, the sunshine; this world.

I believe in the electricity
I believe in the chemistry
   (Not in the wire, not in the flask.)
I believe in the electricity and chemistry
between two hearts with everything to sing
and nothing to ask.

I believe in the broken voice
I believe in the stolen tide
I believe in the dying breeze
I believe in the bald cypress, lonely on the cliff
I believe in the windblown tuft of seed
I believe in the healing palm and loving hand
I believe in the rot and the pebbles’ fate
to return to these beaches one day as sand.

I believe in the scent of frankincense
and the furry power of the purr.
I believe in the smile
I believe in the tear

I believe in the lamplight
I believe in the campfire
I believe in the stories planted in songs
I believe in the buzzard
I believe in the Sky.

I believe in the human heart
and the bird brain.
I believe in the whisper of pinecones
I believe in the spirit
   of komorebi,
      of petrichor,
         of kami,
            of qì.

I believe I believe
I may be deceived
but I believe I believe
I believe in the power of song
I believe in the shade and the lit
I believe in mosses and stones
I believe the weak are also strong, always strong
I believe in taking a stand and the power of sit
I believe in losses and bones.

I believe in the Elders
   I believe in forgetting.
I believe in the Ancients
   I believe in remembering...
I believe in the handprint in ochre.

I believe in the great and the lost
I believe in the good and the grand
I believe in the minuscule and the beginner
I believe in the mediocre.

I believe in the story of soot
I believe in the heart as well as the foot.

I believe in the canker, the scar
I believe in the cancer
trying to carve a life from life.
I believe in the piglet
and the nest-fallen, crestfallen wren.
I believe in the inbreath, the out
I believe in the powerless and the rumbling of stomachs.

I believe in the plaintive howl of the empty.
I believe incense rising in silken curl
I believe in the dragon and the caretaken pearl
I believe in the cold and the dying
I believe in the old and the ancestral
I believe in the young and the transcendental.

I believe in the moon a balloon
caught up in January trees.
I believe in the rain droplets
   (long after the Rain)
I believe in the dew droplets
clung to fern, clung to turtleback, clung to clay
   (long after the Sunup)

I believe in the frost-heave
of silent sod on a Winter’s eve.
I believe in the hoarfrost
I believe in the petroglyphic vernal pool,
closing in to itself, cracked and drying
and too parched to be crying.

I believe in the sweet pull
of angular momentum;
rounding a corner too far and too fast,
palming the corner or column
and swinging unaligned to face a new path.

I believe in the the cat's fur and the cat's purr,
the sound of lark and the scent of the larkspur.
I believe in the post-rain bejewelment of Winter birch branch.

I believe I believe
And though I know
I won’t achieve
the depth of belief
of a shorn-headed man in a robe
taking a match to himself for the globe
I continue to believe that I believe
in the many simple things
the many simple not-at-all things
that the mind brings to light
and the light brings to mind.

I believe in this moment
that I believe in this moment.
Stephe Watson Jul 2019
1:08 Meditation, #128


Scent to Find a Monk-


Sometimes the Monk is

not

Home.

     Check Anyway.


Sometimes the Monk is

not

aWay.

     Check Anyway.


Sniff Around,


  Wait.  Sit.  

Birdcalls, Thoughts...

Distractions, All.

Pay Mushin No Shin

at All.


  Wait.  Sit.

Stay Vigilant,

Stay Immanent.


  Wait.  Sit.

Sometimes the Monk is

a Chip Monk.


A Sneeze?!

Satori?


  Wait.  Sit.
Stephe Watson Jun 2019
The trouble, I find,
with Seeking the Tao

is that one leaves the
Now.  And somehow,
seems unable to grasp
the Sought; one ought
simply to seek cessation
of Seek.
Stephe Watson Jun 2019
I leave damp mudprints
there where I met the shore.

The dragonflies' dances,
the goslings scrammed,
and I for now (or 'lo, for once)
exhaled.  Edges do that.

A turtle somewhere spied me
not spying a frog; quick to leap.
And splash!  My eyes follow my ears.
A biped clown, here at a threshold.
A stronghold of thrushes.
And red-winged blackbirds...
briefly visiting tufts and reeds.

When I go, I think it likely
no memory of me will remain -
no indication, no story, no song -
but for there where my callous
kissed
the muck.

Invert puddlings, concentric whorls.
A fish somewhere, like I,
determined to visit an edge.
Marks with its 'foot'prints,
lips breaking the tension,
a visit to the start of Sky...
now gone.

We each leave our prints.
We leave each other's
memories,
in time.
Stephe Watson Mar 2019
The blues, the blues, these Blues, the Blues,
The Blues.  The Blues won't stop moving,
but haven't gotten to going.  They're a-move,
they're soluble insomnolence, they're
indefferant irreverence
in reference to reverence.
The Blues won't stop going,
but haven't yet left.
All day, I've sat on this Furthest Shore,
unsure if they'd ever get to outgoing,
if they'd ever get to outflowing.

All day, I've sat and worse yet,
all night (we know the nights are the
very darkest sorta pretend-to-be-blackened blues),
sat on this dew-damp Distant Shore,
unsure if I'd ever get to outgrowing,
if I'd ever get to outgoing.

The blues, the blues, these blues, the Blues,
The Blues.  The blues won't stop wounding.
I won't stop choosing.  I won't stop two-ing.

Tilting at horizons, I hold anchor to
Torii.  Summum Bonum, I insist it be.
(Can't let it be.  {whatever it is.})
(Can't let it be.  {whatever it isn't.})
Gateway from humdrum to hallowed.
A red atop blues, also unmoving.
But still in its unmoving, still unmoving.
How unlike the blues.  This red, how unlike the blues.
Stephe Watson Feb 2019
Trusting into, listening to,
and employing
Moon Medicine.

I accept such Light
as comes my way
flickeringly
from stars this night
and
reflect it all
to those who
find themselves lost

in the Dark,
in some Dark,
in their Dark.
Stephe Watson Jan 2019
I spiral happ’ly in,
I feel my flesh
dissolve to wet, to
gaseous mess
and flow flow flow
into the asterism
that is her extra latte French roast
Eye...

She asks, “What do you see?”
I see Himalayan diamond dust,
the wind as particle, sharing the
Sun in glints.
I see spiral arms and accretion discs.
I see stardust, moondust, lovedust
in great grand colorful interwebbings of
lust, of truth, of song, of delight, of Us.
I see RGB Grand Walls of stars;
organized in mind but cosmologically
principled.
I see the possibilities of galaxies -
Unformed
              Adrift
                                            Reaching
  Cooling
Collecting
  Heating
Sparking.
Life giving life.
Lifegiving, Life.
I see an unspoken Universe
of Dust -
Awake to Dance,
to dance to Life.
I see Love.
I see Beauty.
I see worlds not yet.
I see suns unshone.
I see comets unknown.
I see tidepools.
I see fields of fuzzies.
I see Seas.
I see mountains and valleys.
I see Forest.
I see Love.
I see her, and in her,
I see a world, a cosmos, a way;
a way I’d rather be.
A way I’d rather live.
I see Love.
I see her.

Through tears,
I see
the limitless warmth of an unlimited
Un         iv         er         se
in her tawny toffee coffee
Eye.
Next page