dark butterfly emerges at the taste of the moon
both fragile and strong with bent gossamer wings
she lifts towards the sky and drinks full of the light
and dances in moonbeams in celebration of flight

Linda Pahl, 7/10/14

I am writing through this depression; its helping me cope.

Again I hide in the empty shadows
like a lumbering beast
felled by the pain of an ancient wound

A familiar suffocating grief
flows along salty streams
that carry me to sleep's warm embrace

I am gone, lost, fading day by endless day
hearing only the hum of the living world
and the endless ticking of the clock

Blindly I've stumbled upon
the well worn pathways of self rebuke
so strangely reassuring to me now

The ghosts smell blood in the water
already they are circling
sleep, sleep, blessed black velvet sleep

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.

"Interdependence unfolds through ephemeral space time events." You don't say.

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

  -- David Whyte
      from The House of Belonging
     ©1996 Many Rivers Press

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

  -- David Whyte
      from Everything is Waiting for You
     ©2003 Many Rivers Press

Her eyes reflect a sadness
that I long to understand
so I'll swim in pools of hazel
float upon warm salty tears
that will flow onto her *****
be absorbed into her skin
catch a ride within the network
of veins leading to her heart
I'll immerse in her dark secrets
read the stories hidden there
maybe then I can unfathom
sorrows of my lady fair

Linda Pahl, 5/23/14

this roaring fire in my belly
consumes me like a cleansing brushfire
preparing the ground for new growth

from the ashes of my former self
wiser, stronger, less afraid,
like a phoenix, i will rise