This moment is hushed by ecstasy.
The moment's breathe is held~
and you can see the dusty particles
floating through the pillars of light.
This is the exhale,
and is also the silence.
The observation tower of consciousness..
It all just orbits-
Minute molecules gyrate
in vast space.
The waves oscillate
in numberless meditation.
This is where thought
originates from.

It is the nature
of the mountain air.
It is the emptiness
in between speech.
It is the moment of possibility
when a loved one is leaving.
It is the moment experienced
when holding a baby first breathing.
It is the stem of
importance and meaning.

I am starting to remember
where we have been
and where we are going.

How She Loved Me

After she broke her neck, the diagnosis advised her to
avoid all moving when she could.
Once she agreed, three vertebrae were fused together,
and a cushion braced her instead of us.
We were not allowed.

Days passed. Weeks passed. Maybe three.

She sat in her chair and rocked and rocked
and rocked – until the hinges snapped, too.
The repairman repeated those two words:
Don’t. Move.

I avoided her after that – ran right past her when I could –
let my legs leap and fly and bend and breathe.
But even my knees knew how she watched,
how she waited for me to look.

I only did once.

On the day the sky became a lake,
she walked onto the deck like a dock,
threaded the wind with her fingers,
rose her chest when she breathed,
and bounced onto the trampoline.

She stretched and sprung and skipped into a flip
only stopping to giggle about her favorite rollercoasters.

And I stood still to listen.
I stood still and watched.

My heart
dies, an ancient
awful death inside
this chamber of
silence.

I forgot what's it like to
trust whole-heartedly
in someone, or something
to raise my hands
and close my eyes
and know
know for absolute
certain what the story
is, that I'm acting in
and how it ends.

When I go every week
to sit in pews to remind
myself what I'm supposed
to be believing
I can't even sing.
The words fall like
raindrops and needles
soaking and bleeding
my eyes as I read
them, my anxiety
overflows.

Here I stand empty
and coming here
adds emptiness
to my emptiness
till I'm carrying around
more containers than I
can hold.
They're strapped to
my back and my chest and my feet
and I can hardly
believe no one
notices.

How do they not
see all the rain
that never hits the
ground?

I stopped coming
to this place for
answers, they're
too hard to find
and I'm starting to
believe they may not
exist.

So I sit here with
my questions
burning holes in my
heart, or maybe
they're openings?
Sometimes they hurt
so bad I can't stand
it anymore.
And sometimes I just
listen, resting my
aching soul on
someone else's
trust for a minute.

If I can't believe
anymore, than maybe
someone else can

It's a funny thing
giving up
or almost giving up
but at the last second
finding a touch of
peace or grace and
turning the whole
train around.

The stillness scares
me and haunts me
yet it's the only
place I feel safe.
It's become my new
home, here in the dark
with little flashes of
light sometimes
coming in around the
edges. The quiet
here is calming
a cool balm to
my wounds
little shelves for my
questions to rest
upon in this waiting
place that's become
my friend, my solace
my hope.

When I leave here
the room fills up
with panic, coming
in on all sides
with teeth and
razors and voices
screaming and
judging and trying
to fix what can't
be fixed, and I'm
not even sure is even
broken.

This is
the end. This is
the end of where
everything that was
can take me, and if
I step over this line
will it be gone forever?
Or will I come back
around?

Will there be a time
when the stillness
leaves, and light
floods my darkness?
Or will I only know
sparks and sputters
from now till...

Some days I can live
with that, most days.
And every once in a while
I'll come across pure
trust. Certainty.
And I want to whisper
to that person

Stay here.
Cherish this.
Because when it's
gone, it's ******* gone

And maybe it's an
illusion in the
first place, but it's
still nice.
I can't go back
to black and white, and I
wouldn't, if I had
the choice.
But sometimes I
wish I could have
that peace of mind
that isn't built on
paradox or mystery
liminality, the
in between.

But here I am
wading in and out
following the waves to
the edge, or the center
I can't be sure.
Surprised by who I
meet floating along
out here.
Maybe my little boat
can bump into your's
and we can just
breathe, knowing
someone else feels
this same suffocating
peace.

And sitting around
the table
we can be together
in our aloneness.
And if we can't
touch a little bit of
light, we can at least
sit together in the
darkness.

I know change is
coming. I can feel it
like a warm fire
in my gut. Somehow
still, and yet growing.

I came here for
answers. Well, maybe
not. There aren't
many answers I
would believe.

But the stillness? Yes,
I believe the stillness
and the ache I have
when I'm not here.
The panic that closes
in on my chest, the
way I forget to
breathe.

Can I stay
here when I go?

still hours in
still company
still sitting-- waiting
stilly
how long until
we break this
monotony--
are these the hoursminutesseconds we regret?
is this where it all went when say- 80 and dying
you recall and all you have around you is
a familiar stillness
still it can’t all be that bad--
you were alive you were breathing you were still-
digesting and growing and learning and
you heart all the while was beating
you were never still at all
just a vessel for the motion of life
80 years of it
and then it’s all just a return to the good earth
to nurture the movement of life through
a blade of grass a dandelion an acorn
the beauty of your existence was how
you carried the torch of life so brilliantly
cradling it in your breast for so long
even as your youth crept away and your blood slowed down
and the memories faded and the thoughts all but stopped

but here we are
still here

In the stillness that you keep,
       there's a story to be yielded.

I can feel the stillness around
The harbinger of secret knowledge
Wind whispers the message in my ear
Stirring the silence within me
And everything finite becomes infinite
As I lose myself in the depth of stillness

In the silence of Your grace,
in the stillness of Your presence
and Your loudly beating heart,
I sometimes forget.

How the lost find their way
and the wounded get healed.
How the brokenhearted are mended
and the broken are made whole.

It is only by Your scarred hands,
in the small whispers of mercy and grace
and encompassed in the gentlest love
that we find our own beating hearts.

I occasionally become lost in looking, and stagger into a daze for days
though, there’s no one who can count the amount of seconds in a gaze
I share what I cherish through frozen body language
contemplate anguish and propagate patience
to whom it may concern, and to those who swear it doesn’t make sense
my logic has been snatched into the mist of my own fragrance
aromatic boundlessness. strange synesthesia
I smell beauty in proximity
like the aura of Christmas Eve
*this is The Gift of the Ages . . .

I love the brilliant frenzied
        stillness
Earth rotating, an opaque of
        beaded matters
The buckling transfixiated
           openings of bleeding
     ground.
Blue green brown blood
    teeming with movement
disconnecting features
    rapt in water
      and other lives
  repeating, inserting
    maelstroms of
thought.