something stirred and alive came forth
out of my own heart it spoke
    
      all creation is of equalities
      sister brother relations
      here is truth

not to let it pass untested
i made an agreement
with belief

     blade of summer grass
     teach me

     dust speck
     gold starshine

     water droplet
     prisms
    
     fortuitous spider
     i hear your messages

spider moved in her sun-sparkled circle
she threw me spider kisses

but when i gave her kisses back
some voice came booming

     humanity is the golden crown
     of god's achievement

and the spirit of these words then took flight,
transversed my landscape,
crossed an ocean's width of time

and dropped under the waves
with the natural weight
its distorted truth

practices of superiority
of *******, of killing exploitation
rose from the collective--
flashed their white lightening

but struck counter--
diluting dissolving disarming

greediness and favoritism
manipulation and lies

expectation of privilege
so called divine right

a voice it came again
so that greater love
may have heard itself

    all creation is conscious
     all is alive all are equal
    
     none is better or worse
      than another

      remember this
       
       *to practice

My quarks my molecules my cells --  
they all piped up.

Universe was playing
its simplest tune.

My heart skipped a light fantastic
to the moon.

Moon expressed her left and right,
her face turned to everyone.

I heard her voice
serenade the sun.

Natural me is I ~ I am.

I offer myself
to the sky above.

Bow to earth.
Dance my love.

Down from Arizona desert cold, absence of ice and snow
three white painted terracotta pots
by the Villa apartment on the tabled walkway—
Christina’s place.

Stacked, each alternately inverted one to the next
stabilize a snowperson body.
Can you picture it?

Black painted buttons all the way up?
Lips of dots, an orange twist of nose,
deep eyes void black.

Burgundy scarf tied around the neck,
positioned just so, it could be fit
to a Christmas Chihuahua.

By its playful form and surprising attitude,
may it well succeed at pleasing every passerby
and draw out, on each scroogey face, a smile.

It’s been doing just that for me, as I park
opposite each night, my headlights there shining.

Still, I have not and shall not peak inside
the alluring, open terracotta skull,
since I have imagined not wishes,
nor disappointments, nor elves and cookies,
but practical ash, randomly spiked with spent cigarettes.

Last night, as I walked out, with my night’s anticipations,
my grab-bag of happy tangles, Christina’s hanging silver chimes
issued soft whispering over terracotta, and I caught
a remembrance of Amazing Grace how sweet the sound.

Then Mojo my psychic dog turned me sharply,
and he took me away–we two, going toward home
a starry desert.

On this early chill November morning
where are you now, my firefly,
in crystal ground, under log or leaf?

Where is your crew in its dying?
Have your babies wakened
to winter sleep?

I recall how on July evenings, when I came out,
I had long listened for your messages.

Blessings to you for accepting me, my witnessing
your spotted twists free-floating down;
your drifting off and on through moonlit tree,
visits to my wrist, a shoe.

I was happier than happy—
happiest as happy be.

Had you felt my spark
electric energy?

Multiple mystery goes slipping
in and out of my pocket.

And now, these few months hence, there is
this glint on the frost-etched window.
Flash of apt stillness.

A wild-voiced picture:
our pleasure’s twin.

How could I say I know exactly what you are?

By my ear and everywhere I would say!
These light flung words of yours,
not mine, to lend.

Yet, if I could love you so truly and then release you,
would I comprehend what life wishes to teach me
about possessiveness, the brevity of existence,
time itself, worlds of no time?

Most joyful would I leave all the faces of my dwelling.
Sail headlong into far-flung dream,
toward sky’s moon, hunting the sun.

Glimpse heaven in our dancing?

Behold you and my own body, firefly,
before we were born?

What's your take on walking?

My body serves my soul
and tells me how to go.

My heart, affixed -- aims to show.
These ways I’ve walked in my shoes and stockings.

I've looked to heaven’s stars, to daylit clouds,
when I've stepped out, or dropped my gaze
to track the ground.

Yes, it is true—whoever passed me by
could have taken offense and supposed
I lacked my confidence.

And ofttimes, I strode out straight and true
as if toward a far mist horizon.

Un-manifest future,
even peek-a-boo,
could be comprehended? 

I should doubt it.

And if I wished to address an occasional
in-the-dumps, lost-at-sea feeling,

I'd shut my eyes, and walk backwards --
owl-like, swivel 360 my head.

Backwards blind circumspection seemed worthy my try;
Ask--Who am I?

I would story where I’d been.

In my most spontaneous of nature foot-trafficking,
in roulette walk; my spin of gun chamber click--
ant, spider, beetle, and the occasional sighing snail
had fled my shadow shoe?

As slow drift clouds in a sky game would play
with the sun to hide—creatures had sought me out,
sung their farewells?  (it was an excellent day to die)

Let me tell it, as it had happened today,
and truth says how.

My feet, they had gotten to waltz-walking.
O how my body and soul
danced a-fancy free.

Love was brimming out of me; happiness
whispered her wordless name; and
my tongue tripped nonsensical.

So if, at last, you've kept a-pace with me
in sympathetic striding, then perhaps
you would surmise:

there never could be a flat-footed me,
when I spout off with poem-talking.

Now, what’s your take on walking?

slow the waters were ascending
high waters turning turning

like a baby’s satisfied fist
unfolding

bees and butterflies come
and everywhere
Life is

green calling out to everything
strutting and shouting success!

silence underpinning green

sunlight announcing it
up to the sky

I awoke this morning with all my
nanoseconds whizzing by—

spiraling, they broke for their exits,
they disarrayed my sky.

Each now and now and now
seemed a face, flash color,

many worlds. I could not sense
their place of start or stopping.

Morning sun peeped blue curtains.
I tried my usual breath, felt
heartbeat, wiggled foot.

My dog, he stretched
and bumped my bedframe
with his chest.

Against my fear I placed and pushed
messages of gratitude.

I thanked all things changing
and all of changing time.

Rather than elsewhere, I was here.

Instead of dead--
alive.