Mistakes are miracle gifts,
An opening of spirit wings
Teaching what might be
Painted on the sky in
Numerous serpentine solutions,
A letting loose of reins.

Just listen to the whisper
Of the mind’s darkest corners
Impossible words joined,
Somehow making sense
Of this life’s chaos.

Let them drift through dreams
Into puddle-muddle messages
In some esoteric language,
Translated from the frenzied scrawl
Of love-letters written to a thankless world.
All poems are exquisite mistakes.

There’s a decisive moment
Between light and dark,
An intermission of clear sight
When movement becomes illusion.

For light does not hold still
But converges to a hundred shapes,
Fields, haystacks, cathedral portals,
A dizzy dervish, constant change,
Finally softened by slithering shadows
Of dusk.

A tempered darkliness folding
Into moon-glow pillow clouds,
Creating their own impressions.

Sick of too much bright?
Dissolve into the velvet night.
Shake out the dust of stars,
Quench the fire, blow in the wind.
Maintain the subtle balance
That silence will allow.
Reflect attack and reimburse
With kindness.
Don’t fight the fading flesh
Nor quarrel with the unexpected present.
Admire the simple, ignore the shame.
Explore that train of light
And with one single backward glance
Consume all the grief that one life
Can contain.

I am a spirit electric
begot by the gods of random,
mothered by chaos.

I live viciously,
eat forbidden fruit,
wreak havoc wherever
I go.

I am wild sea
I am dust-storm,
tsunami, volcano,
steel-breasted, fire-armed
on the outside.

I am petal-hearted,
honey-breathed,
cloud-kissed,
gold-showered
on­ the inside.

I weave multi-colored magic
onto mountains, spray deserts
with quivering star-drops.
expect impossibly wonderful
outcomes.

I want to die like
that old Chinese poet –
drunk, drowned in a pond,
trying to embrace the full moon.

Your dream-self came to me
with its familiar night music,
on delicate note at a time.
I listend to imagination’s tongue,
chanting the mantra of being.
Entranced by moon color,
I measured the distance of
meteors between your planet
and mine.

Dawn came reluctant
into the fog of high trees,
into the speckled dark
of mountain peaks.

Suddenly, you were there,
an unforgettable fragrance
of light, like blossoms
blowing through clouds,
a butterfly dream that
would last forever.

Listen to the tipping-down
of branches, after rain, after rain.
Listen to the world-wash,
to the yes of blossom, to the anxious
out-stretching, to the notes
born from a dream.

Listen to the inside silences
and speak them to the sky.
Listen to the stone wish to
be softened, to the earth wish
to be held.

Listen to the bluebird’s warble,
to the looming hum of bees.
Listen to dawn light deepening,
to the flutter of soft-sheathed wings.

Listen as the stream remembers clarity,
Listen to the strange complexity of beauty.
Hear the one design of motion as it sings.

On earth, in air, on water,
light is its own essence--
an enchanted dance,
a harmony of rhyme
in quick pearling as on
the surface of a pool ;
Or, it’s slow, expanding
as if some obstacle is in
the way.

Beyond sight’s reach,
light glides, swan-like
or blinks, star-like or
dapples uncertain between
sun and shadow.

A match darts it’s first
white flame, then flickers.
Splashing sparks may
tumble over pebbles or
moon repeat itself
a thousand times.
A translucent cascade
of bright snow illuminates
a winter field ; the gentle
glow of a candle flame
warms the heart.

Even what seems
forever dark as
midnight’s blackest
mood is not immune
to opening to the glory
of light.

Flashes of yesterday’s garden,
deep green under a gray sky--
I step into the canvas, moving
slowly, regretful and watchful,
with the weight of past light.

So many colored years,
some bright, some somber,
and you, the voice that ripened
youth, the accented syllables
opening the hours between
cliffs and sky, your presnce
re-appearing in soft explosions
of living, so painful to let go.

I pray for change, impermanence,
for last year’s dust to settle to
acceptance, to turn over the pages
of the past and to forgive everything.

Almost like a conversation,
trees come into leaf.
Last year gone, time to move on.
Time to tumble soft flower explosions
into imperatives driven by the wind
that approximates a song.
Let light fall in thick drops,
entering through perfumed windows
and silken doors, fragrant with love.
Let there be a daily siesta of green
solitudes, a sigh light as a feather,
stillness reovered. Let this season’s
world become a dream, a ceaseless
burgeoning of seraphic joy,
an elevation of oneness .