a severed branch in smooth moonlight
adorned above an open gate—
does it lead out or in?
does kindness wait beyond the blind corner,
or something severe
lurking in silence
to devour your life?
something wild with eyes for the dark calls through the night.
an inkling that this night may be your last,
and you’ve already forgotten
the gentle light of the rising sun.
death teases the truth behind the illusion
but never gives up the ghost.
maybe not tonight, but someday—
it will come,
as unavoidable
as the waterfall is to the river.
but you are not the river.
you are the sky, my friend—
vast and open.
do not mistake yourself for your life,
which is but a reflection
on the river, briefly.
let it fall away, as all things must,
over the edge,
into the unknown,
into the mist.

I know the face of God
I have that faith beyond my sight

I know my fellow pilgrims
I have this comfort of common doubts.

I doubt my church at its lychgate
I bear these beliefs in its shade.

While walking through a warm afternoon
that suddenly turned from bright to dim,
with blazing clouds that began to loom
and shadows grew deeper and light was thin:

My way ahead was unexpectedly barred
by an iron gate, its lock snapped shut.
It’s topped by spikes well made to ward
off hurdlers, sharpened, made to deeply cut.

Past the gatehouse, a tunnel, a fallen shelter
from the rapidly coming hard rainfall
that once was sung about by a jester
in time with a tambourine, as I recall.

It leads to a light that’s still ablaze
where sunbeams’ sheen still sparkles bright,
beckoning us all to pass this gate
that looks at first glance a menacing might.

To stay before this wrought iron fence,
its spikes tipped with red poison that drips
into the soil that’s in cracked distress?
I won’t just wait here in the dawning eclipse.

No lock is unpickable, no wall too high
for those with the will to reach new skies.

A flowering shrub

at the monastery gate:


butterflies greet me.

The gate has no bell,

no one opens when I knock --


It comes down to me.

At night, against the pulsing embryonic black which could
Squeeze any number of untold horrors from it’s voided heft,
There sits a door; bright searchlights unmoving, having forever
Ago found and revealed the menacing target of their feverish hunt.
The lights, beacons of vision and revelation stay still,
Afraid to ever lift their gaze from the door.

The door; a crimson sentinel of conformity’s’ demands. A gate
To a finite space of infinite secluded terrors. It’s mocking facade,
Not the true foundation of the haunting visage, but it’s chosen
Illumination against the choking nothingness around it.
There is nothing else but it, and if the lights lose
Their oppressive gleaming, there will be nothing.

Would it not be better for the deep to win the ever waging war
Against our struggles to find hints of sight and recognition?
If the door were to vanish from the othering out there,
then it would be impossible to not turn inward. A forced reflection,
a mirror that’s presence is known, existence felt, but is unseen,
only available when the absence is absolute.

Nonplussed, the bastion remains, a gravity well pulsing
In and out the night, as if the darkness centered around
Maintaining the illusion of safety from knowing ourselves.
Do not be afraid, you will not be forsaken or alone with anything
Other than the beating of your quickened pulse, the edges
Of your vision shrinking until all that you are

Is mirrored in that crimson sentinel.