Giant skyward leaning
shedding leaves, do you dream long
of summer's greening?

The gold of days have waned
the gray rains sway
fall will leave you
cold in winter's lay.

Seemingly a thousand years old
a seedling sown
born of an ancient
maple forest.

I sip my quiet through a cup of coffee, while
on the outside of my angular
bubble made of brick,
wood, and window panes, silent
cars drive by
throwing off with their motion, over-exposed
pieces of the sun
from their also angled bubble
bodies, reflected into the eyes of every passer-by,
bouncing back and forth between us.

Images of you burn
like birthing nebulas
in the charred retinas of my eyes,
shining perpetuated light
through every part of me
I forgot to love.

Cast shadows and moons
over the night sky's critic,
and let your shadowy mistakes
come undone.

think your worst thought

and throw it deep in the pines
to get caught on the vines

then go there at night
when the light of a bone
colored moon makes shadows
rattle and bite

and hold that thought

tight.

r ~ 9/11/14

people's eyes are like constellations, wherever you go
they will be there during sunlight and sundown,
picking out flaws like they pick out food on menus
finding the crack in the liberty bell, finding Venus de
Milo’s lack of arms, like flowers, we wilt without
rain, and we are so ashamed of being imperfect,
but why do we run from the rain? can we not accept
reality and believe fantasy is a much more powerful
sense of comfort than believe in the bizarre judgement
the earth has provided for us, the most grandeur
hearts are the heavily scarred and bruised, because
what are we without our flaws? we aren't boring.

- kra

There are two philosophical terms
that come from Zen and Japanese Ceramics:
Wabi,
     and
            Sabi.
'Wabi' refers to the flaws of a thing that give it the character it has;
the distinctive feature that makes it what it is.
It could be asymmetry, it could be a crack formed during the creation process.
It could be the thing made by your kid in art class, or by you, even;
those things are crammed with Wabi.

Wabi: Flaws created that individualize, identify and make possible sentimental attachment.

'Sabi' refers to the effects of Time on a thing, showing it's age;
the erosion and change that are inexorable through Time.
It could be the landscape of a foreign planet, or the holes in your jeans.
It could be your tattoos, scars, or psychology.
It could be the scratches on your truck, or the rusting paint you think looks cool.

Sabi: Flaws resulting from being so lucky as to survive long enough to endure things.

Both wabi and sabi lend to a thing Character.
They provide a foundation for relation as well as identity.
They are matters of perspective and thus are subjective.
A perfectionist denies the existence of these,
A romantic says they are all that there is.

As One becomes more open to these notions,
everything becomes a thousand-fold more beautiful.

Not far from where I am, the King fire rages.
Ruling, man-made, it tames the dry wilds
and rakes over our cradles and gardens.
It was waiting a long time to happen.
Conceived in a summer sky unforgiving,
sparked long before any September thoughts of arson,
the blaze was born of the need for renewal.
Brightly alive,
the King eats each and every bird nest and evergreen.
Blinding and blinded alike,
it is a mouth, devouring blue egg and seedling impatient,
eating and feeding, change incarnate,
all the while whispering
ten-thousand times over its
snap-crackle mantra,
the declaration of a wide-eyed being,
seething, like its victims,
reeling in ecstasy.

How many homes are caught in the blaze
not two valleys over?
Is it the instinct of the fire,
like us passing animals,
to turn anything to
FOOD?
All I can see,
and can't help but to breathe,
is the smoke left over from the heat beast's meal.
Soon
ash will be raining
in place of the water
now so needed.
As I pray for rain and watch the grey
drift like fog banks,
like foreboding ghostly hills,
the sun is lighting through the dense
in the afternoon,
in a slow waking morning.

Through the smoke
an orange beam of sunlight
falls at my feet

There's an innate feeling
of                                               
                                                      drift
                    that comes with
letting go.

The space we create for ourselves is,
by nature, weightless
until we fixate to the
points
in it which we made
to relate to;

because love is exactly like gravity,
and the points in space
are planets and stars,
celestial bodies
just perfectly warm enough for life
to explore,
orientations to look up from
and see
the rest of it,
but when we realize who it was
wrought the cosm
and we wake
stupefied and lucid
those pieces,
seeming both so distant and close,
unweave themselves from the fabric
and like magic
they disappear.

Our fists
forced gently into grasplessness
panic at the lack of that
substance our tongues and eyes
and right-side-up sensibilities
wish so desperately was there
from the beginning.
We start floating
of some unknown accordance,
though undoubtedly, deeply our own,
towards the next and closest
brightest shining
source of love.