POEM: The Rain Makes Me A Contemplative

It forces me inward in a way that nothing else can.

The mountains make me humble,
Forging rivers make me weak.
Stars evoke the mystery of me.
Autumn leaves squeeze out the gratefulness.
The snow, like a mother, holds me in the crook of her arm
When I need holding most.

Only the rain presses her fingers to her lips
And invites me to whisper, not speak a word.
Only the light drumming of water sluicing
Down the gutter spout, the ticking seconds of
Time as it ages, reminds me how I need to be mindful and kind.

Only the gray light of a rainy morning insists that
I spend a holy moment in wonder:
Of the illusions that I hold,
The doubts that I carry like scuffed luggage.
Everything.

Of course, it brings the flowers with it too; greening pastures
As if a charm for the new mowing season.
It flits as soundless as a sparrow's heart.
Like an earnest want, wanting what is best for me;
It seeks a center where stillness lives
Where everything else will always wait.

POEM: The Secret Of Life Haiku

Gratitude is a
choice we always hold cradled
in our open hands.

POEM: Waiting For The Bakery To Open

I am waiting for the bakery to open -
Maybe for a Danish, some coffee for sure – my needs are simple –
It is my only chance to know the day as a friend.

I turn my gaze inward to where the quiet of space resides.
I will excavate un-mined silence like forgotten buried jewels,
Today, even the songbirds will marvel at my unrehearsed song.
I will push aside all the noise and watch what grows.

POEM: Breath Poem

Your were a friend, but then lost my address
You were a son or daughter, but now are orphaned.
You were in love only to become disillusioned by
The drama and the breakup.
You were alive and animated but then you passed on.

In the end is just the breath
That begins over and over and over again.

If not my own breath then yours,
If not your breath then creaturely breath,
If not the breath of creatures, then the sound
Of wind high in the hills,
If not the wind, then just fluttering wings
Of the luna moth,
Or the monkish junco, back for the new season.

Everything returns to the breath.

In the beginning too, it was just breath.

We artists of the creation that is “we” –
We squeeze truth out of light and dark,
From the sweet and the venomous
Both within and without us.

POEM: Aren't There Just Times?

Aren’t there just times
When you want someone to know?
Times when you feel like a hole
Has been punctured in your skin
And you leak all over everything?

Aren’t there just times
When the loudest shout is not enough?
When you want to stop people on the street
To explain how the pieces of your life
Fit together
And how they don’t?
How what she said and what he said
Was wrong
And how ready you are for what
Will happen today or not?

Aren’t there just times?
When you are right but everything
And everyone around you
Could care less?
When you want to cry and can’t?
When you DO cry and can’t believe you
Are crying now – of all times –
In front of him? In front of her?
Before them all?

Aren’t there just times?
When your fingers won’t stop drumming?
When you can’t get awake,
Or won’t stay asleep no matter what
Remedy you self prescribe?

When the smallest of things takes hold of you
Like the dry season,
You believe anything could burn
With the careless act
Of one careless match
And a spark
And all the possibility that brush fires bring.

POEM: The Commission

Tonight,
I commission you to make new promises:
Here, in our presence before everyone
And with the wild Kentucky Bluegrass to bear witness -
You are to write your history and your own tomorrow.
You are to carve out a new place in your heart
For the old passions and the new.

You are to remember everything,
The good and the bad.

Bring it all with you for you will need it
To refashion new youth
And re-passion a new path –

You are to reveal vistas yet unviewed,
And learn the music of songs yet to be sung.

We will make wishes of peace for you:
Full throated wishes of grand and long health -
Wishes for the embrace of warm friends
And warm beer -
And always the promise of more for you.