Who would have guessed — when I tilted my heart
toward baby lizard, perched on a colored desert stone,
she’d blink one eye at me, turn to smile, it seemed,
and lend a listening ear?

I’d only said in a lizard way
“I love you”.

Who would have thought — when that stone had heard me
loving her, it would, it seem, speak back?
Loving stone too, I was!

Stone, I so admire your villages.
I smile toward your many stone peoples.

I eavesdrop on universal questions posed
around sacred fires carefully tended.

And around one hearth, among
cinder specks scattered – one minute wisp,
one grain of cinder there.

Dare I say I love you too?

For in that cinder grain I hear —
worlds of stars, sweetly singing!

By way of explanation, reader friend,
such is what a practice of
Loving All Beings Equally
has made of me.

A crazy being?
Could be.

But would you nonetheless
accept the possibilities
and likewise go love adventuring?

If you’d prefer, we all could earnestly
and objectivity talk it through.

Or say ~ Love come! Come!

Speak through us.
We are listening.

I've known heights, aimed like a bullet
to the top of the head.

Forbidden songs, jagging
placid landscapes.

Waterblood waterbone --
my body cries out to me.

How long the abuse, how long!

In the barreled pit of my sober life
up from common sense--snapping into it,
my soul came alive.
Alive I say!

By grace I breached.
Free in the wind!

Kingdoms of water, alive kingdoms --
hear now the words of my tears.

Mea Culpa!

I slam on the brakes, tear off the roofs
of steel compartments.

I see sky and feel in daylight every hidden star.
I declare -- the emperor of death
has no clothing.

I scatter forgiveness
across all the fattened streets.

Oceans of me are singing.
A spinning angels' symphony.

Over the graves of ancestors,  I vow:

Water, I shall love you.
I shall speak up, shall protect you.

I shall fight for you and die
if I must.

Ten times ten give my very life
-- that you live.

Dare to live.
Stop insisting on chasing after death.
Stop trying to die.

Quit the grand illusion.
You shall never die.

Grow your wings and fly to the mountaintop
of your world.  Breathe stars.
Bravely go alone. Only you can do this.

Regularly in your day--exercise conviction.
Visualize Stars, the Sun.

Golden, fibrous threads
of starlight, of sunlight --

take them in, through the nostrils.

This is nothing less than
soul's power-fuel.

Inhale slowly and experience
the gentle music of love's fire,
as flames would pull up
a chimney stack, up pipes of ovens.

Faith builds with such breath practice.

Greed cooked transformed.
Anger put to rest.

Ignorance surrendering
to ways of knowing.

Prepare that your purpose
shall speak to you.

Breathe starlight.

Are you surprised
that you feel no heat?

Your unique timelessness
awaits your recognition.

Last night, a spiraled light
it caught and submerged me--
carrying far off
all my fears.

My drum-pulsed heart was flying.

I rose and weaved my airy way
among jagged mountain rock--
my path opening, opening

until a high-arched gate appeared,
laced with colored flags
and I moved through it and beyond.

In a while I saw among distant shadows of villagers
and wisps of smoke a child there, sitting,
her back to me.

Are you my teacher?
Yes, she said, though not with words.

What do you have to teach me?
Be simple.

from where I now am at home
easy on my blue couch

a wisp of a thought had come to me
with that -- circles of you
spiraled and cut messages in the air

clockwise danced around dangling
pinpoint flowers holding
sips

white and white again, each petal
accompanying rush of shallow river water
talking over rock

if I had had the notion to
carry you home in a pocket
would you have nipped at me on the way?

this is to say
I have carried you home today
and you are no further from me
than my very breath

quantifiably
this is ever so

I buzz
while you fix dinner

When greening land and the azure sea
had first appeared to bodiless me,

it was naturally quite alluring--
and precipitous down-sloping
was required.

I leveled my sights
and I dove down--

I imagined there--my new life,
emergent forming.

When at last some pre-form-idea me
had touched the ground--shock surprised,
I sprung up and I flew again.

My mother-to-be
could have been but was not
in the least alarmed.

I sensed her nearby
smiling.

Below me, seawave
collapsed into seawave,

wide ocean surfaces
flashed fields of whitecaps,
each one existing only for an instant.

So brief it is to be alive, I know this is true!
Yes Yes! Adventure
be assigned to me!

In my own way I breathed in.
I was arriving.

In my own way I breathed out.
Home.

moon
waste no seconds with my heart

above my head invitations open

moonlight's no solstice sun reflection,
but solstice moon rather
mooning moon

what gifts you bring for me
to make me stop!

simplicity in the message

solstice moon
you my heart

and my heart
love