What a day to see light and its colors
catch the human heart
in its glorious song of love.
For just one day may I see and say
joy and peace and signs of creation
signs of life on the dark landscape.

New beginnings that thumb their noses
at my old and aching bones
and every muscle memory of failure
every nodule of shame trying to grow inside.

For just one day let me glow inside
reaching with care everywhere
I dare to believe
there’s someone who deserves it -
or not – I give it anyway.
Stoop to look into sad, bleak eyes
that they might see the light
the passion and kindness
that stirs inside.

Let’s have one day of light.

Rumi urged jumping into the boiling sea of passion
and grief would run from you.
I have been in that sea.
Swimming in those waters
caught up in the currents
keeping my head above water
there was no time for grief.

Now, still, there is passion
but more like a vat of rich soup
about to boil.

The tentacles of loss
reach out to wrap themselves
about my wrists and ankles.
Age, a slow moving barge,
moves up on me
but my arms and legs splash,
and determined,
I inhale a rich tide of inspiration
from courageous friends.
I breathe love
in poems, whispers and music
and battle the sinking.

It is predawn and still dark outside
but I cannot sleep.
The cool of aching winter calls
but the oaks, still green,
soon their leaves will fall
like me who so easily slips away
from the grasp
of the universe
that always beckons me to join
the elements of its peace.

But too often
I choose the storms
the collisions
and scattering properties.

How sweet it is to close the distance
between us
to find each other
and dwell together
in moments of love, respect,
mutual admiration,
and laughter
that seem so rare
out there,
to abide in sweet and precious harmony
for a while.

“Look for the soul,
you become soul;
Hunt for the bread,
you become bread
Whatever you look for,
you are.”   – Rumi

A glorious magenta thistle blossom
a humpback whale breaching
a haiku by my friend John
a kitten swatting at a bouncing string
a silent moment just sitting peacefully
Debussy’s La Mer
a giggling baby
a golden leaf falling from oak.

Listening to Leopold’s symphony
for two minutes,
I was bored.
My mind wondered.
I recalled the dramatic first chords
of Wolfgang’s symphony 41
how it awakened me
how I was hooked by his energy and zest.

Even though Leopold taught his son,
the fame of the impulsive and creative Amadeus spread
as he wrote and played
and captured the attention of the world.

I wonder what poor Leopold thought of his own work
in contrast to his prolific son
a son who seemingly created great music
from nothing
who freed himself from tired conventions.

A creator makes something from nothing
and I wonder if being lost in nothingness
as we poets sometimes are,
if letting go of the familiar
makes it easier to create.

Two souls wrapped together
in seasons and all kinds of weather
here we are these precious three
you me and one we can’t see.

Making our path, finding our road,
through our hearts a river flowed
a torrent of love and wild romance.
We tripped, but we danced our dance.

Your big brown eyes held my gaze
we talked and tried in a thousand ways
to merge as we fought and sought a third one
we drifted and flew from planet to comet to sun.

Where we were going we did not know
we ran fast at first but now… we walk slow
our speed or height mattered less to us
than building together a bond of trust.

So we’ve yet another adventure ahead.
All those years ago when we wed
we didn’t know the privilege we’d share
from solid earth to now in mid air.

We’ve smelled frangipani and cactus flower
sung sadness and joy and hymns of power.
From three threads together we’ve spun
a beautiful, sturdy cord of one.

I am no Freud or native shaman,
experts in dream interpretation,
but the other night I had a dream
of my dear departed daddy.
We were lying on the bed together
and he told me how I had hurt him.
He almost whimpered his disappointment.
This man who was a paragon of strength in my life!
How precious it was to feel his warmth, vulnerability
and humanity in this close encounter.
Even now my eyes grow misty
as I remember the way he was in that dream.

I wonder if in my dreaming
I hugged the Father of the Universe
and felt the frailty of nature
the sadness of it for what we have done to it.

Maybe we need to feel this intimate connection,
this union of our humanness with a powerful love
to grasp the enormity of our responsibility
in this relationship.