Being grows in earth
and the water of the womb
where heaven pools
its special nourishment.

Body, once born,
is a lone, flying crane
resisting with an energy
of singular intention.

But mind must live
in the world’s garden
among a few bright blooms
of insight, many thorns
of righteousness,
gnarled roots of rage.

The body’s path is straight,
narrow, its promise certain.
But mind must choose
at each which path to take.

Sometimes, the jade air
Sometimes, the forest’s verdant breath
Sometimes, the moss pond
and the frog’s plonked exclamation.
Sometimes, the confused helix
of crossed branches, the sun’s
enduring eye, blinded here and there
by the cliff’s stern countenance.

Each of these can manifest
as the soul’s reflection,
For how else could it know
its own existence?

Only chance can help
the soul to find its way
through heaven’s web of lumens
and planets’ eternal orbits,
an endless procession
of hollow moments to be filled
by a sudden eclipse of expectation,
a quick downpour of regret,
a shadow of fear, a memory exhumed.

Yet the final rush
of enlightened immersion
is only a license to begin again.

The world is made of mystery
as wild as the dunes
where secret spirits gather
and grasses whisper psalms.
My guesses cannot run as fast
nor can ideas fly
to catch all that amazement
floating upwards toward the sky.

This universe enormous,
its distances unknown.
Its stars and moons and planets
live in their spacious home,
but all that can belong to us
is life and death alone.

Glittering brilliance, these crystal panels
dressed in their thick, gold frames,
cupping and shaping the light,
pooling images the second they appear,
then, unlike the camera, they let go,
swallowing the world whole,
preparing for the next procession
of time-bond creatures.
They respect transience,
creating their own temporary ripples,
their own instantaneous installations.
They are mime artists of illusion,
disappearing as the earth darkens.
Patiently, for they wait for the return
of light, never doubting it will come.

Silence: the whispered voice of grace,
its careful slowness and this planet,
in time’s enormous hurry passed charm,
left behind in a dream, spring field’s
openness, now crowded with the goings-on
of business, each body,
each speechless phenomenon crying
to be heard above of roar of the collective:
chatter
twitter
buzz
shriek
thunder…

Headlines blaring their soundless alarms,
unlanguageable media: the execution of privacy,
and the Oneself, ignored yet fascinating
in its own becoming.

Watch it grow, mute, change, strive
for its own fragile path, each journey unique,
each arrival a new beginning.

There’s this crazy house but
Where? No one really knows.
And it’s full of poems, not a line of prose.
And even though the sky’s the roof
all the doors are closed.
She keeps the whole place clean
and neat so anyone can see
that what she’s really after is Possibility.

For this is the Dickinson rag, yea, yea,
this is the Dickinson rag.

There was that carriage, sweet and slow -
Sunday driver – stop and go.
He picked her up along the way -
It seems it was the end of day,
and they drove to some strange mound -
damp and musty, underground.
Was her gossamer gown a bit transparent?
Cause the guy’s intentions weren’t apparent.
I guess she really liked the ******
Cause she wrote him poems in great number.

For this is the Dickinson rag, yea, yea,
This is the Dickinson rag.

Her characters are really weird -
Those roses “out of town?”
Wish I’d gone along with them –
but I got no scarlet gown.
Yea, Emily, your verses rock,
but I know I’m not alone
In not quite understanding
what means “zero to the bone”.

And that’s the Dickinson rag, yea yea,
that’s the Dickinson rag.

The sea – calm, immense as space
and shining – one instant in time
with breath rushing in before me,
flagstone path turned silver
in the moonlight –

Your hair in the wind -
gently picking up the sand.
It’s hard filling the days
without you.

But the nights fill themselves
the velvet peace that is yours
and soon will slip into me.