More

Harvest the stars
like a whistle of blue
and peel back the veneer
of summer like siding
on the old homestead
bubbling off of all memory
in the heat.

Paw your way
through the green and yellow beans
and you will  feel the itch of your skin
and the anticipation of your mouth watering
with delight at the ways that butter
and a little salt
light up when you
place the tender bites
between the chewing
of delight.

Pick a perfect peach.
Peel the husk
of a squeeking ear
and find treasure.
Tomatoes full of juice
and flavor like nothing else
you will ever taste.

 Stand bare foot
in the cool of the grass
at dawn
and know
that you are more alive
on this day
than you ever imagined
was possible.

Tomorrow,
more.

This Wild Longing

Nodding to Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to know the intimate ways
of the world to be sure
you are worthy
of love.

Brush your finger along the back of my hand
or smooth the softest skin of my cheek
and know that the gristle
of the uninvited sorrow
and unrequited love
is all I have had
at my meager table
until you.

This wild longing,
this rain on the dry and damaged fields,
is what heals and gives hope for a new way
where lonely is forgiven
and I offer myself,
harsh and exciting,
to the universe
full of the flight
of migration
toward
the soul's home.

Tuck into the Night

Yield to the way
that the night hushes
at the leaving of the day.

You have had to haggle
with the mind
and all that wandered
near you.

At midnight you,
the auger of your own life
the wise one within,
is just a bird
tucking into the next
for sleeping.

Let Sleep Come

Let sleep come.
Let me surrender to the silence
of the mind and relax into dreaming.
Let sleep come.
Let the body renew
and rest like it must do.

Let sleep come.
It is as easy as this breath
and letting go
of everything.

Ashes

 Embrace the ways you are attached
to the world. . . .pungent and moist with life
like a loving embrace on the hottest days
of August.

The air is stale and full of the ashes
of so much grief and memory
it hurts to breathe.

Bring the rain,
or so many tears,
to wash the body clean
and let the spirit soar free.

Wounded

 Let the sliver of the idea
fester in the mind
and it will begin to throb
like a thorny gouge under the skin
activating the nerves and inviting infection
until you debride the soul
of the ooze,
puncture the slippery sack
of white cells and the ways
you've tried to protect yourself
and failed.

Break it open.
Clean it out.
Let the wound heal,
scar over,
and live to tell
the story
about the battle
that left all these marks.

What Else

Breathe.

What else is there 
on a day where I wear grief
so close to my skin
and sweat at the real heat
clinging to life
like the one I am living?

The beads of prayer
that act honorably to hold my spirit,
and all the days I have,
with small and loving knots
are mysterious clues
to the universe.
The tiny globes of stone
are wrapped around my wrist
and in the sound of air that enters
and leaves me
one
after
another.

Remind me
of the gift,
the one of a child,
like the petals
on a thousand flowers
in a field where friends
and souls know where
to meet
and laugh
like sadness
was forgotten
so long ago.

Pardon

Pardon me.

Forgive me for my sins.
Let that grace of loss
erase all the suffering
from heart and mind
and expand toward an ease
between us.

Let peace flow
as if the dam burst
and washed all that was
unclean and clean
toward the shore
of renewal
and let me breathe
as if nothing ever happened.