The Darkest Nights

December dark nights
don’t bother me.
I need the balance of them
to wrap themselves
like the black winged bird they are,
feathers like lashes covering my eyes,
letting me fall into
depths of the richest despair,
letting me fall asleep,
focus on blackness
that amounts to less than
the imagination can grasp
in her hungry, outstretched palm.

When the darkness comes,
my breath comes easier
as I dive back into the womb-cave of time.
My hands trace the face of memory here—
etch the symbols someone
might someday understand
to mean something
like absolute kindness.

If I place my hand over the heart
of my child self,
the one who wants to call out
to all of our mothers,
I calm her,
rock her to sleep
in this darkness,
and I let her slumber
next to the warmth
of your enormous love.

In the darkness, we turn
to each other as innocents,
wrap our arms around the other,
and become one light
that will be the spark
that will start another fire
and sustain us until spring.

Chinese Story

I'm learning to be the cook today.

The ox sits before me
so still after the slaughter,
his blood pooling
near his cooling neck
as evidence of this crime
of need.

I hold the smooth wooden handle
trying to forget the violence of the blade
and the death
that eventually
brings nourishment.

What will it be like
to plunge the steel
into this flesh
and watch the heavy hind quarters
or a shoulder
drop like clods of dirt
to the floor?

My hands are clean.
I have given thanks
for the soul of this beast.

But what of the sweet smell
of fresh blood swirling around me?
What of the bowels that
tumble warm at my feet
onto the sacred places
of this moment?
Do I wash them away
into the river of dispair
or let them pay witness
to the rest of the quick slices
into the truth of this necessary
sacrifice?

There is nothing to do
but wait for the moment
where the soul leaves his body
and I am called to find the places
between the joints where the blade
touches no bone
and the hand forces
nothing but release.

Drinking to Love

My lips hover
at the edge of this glass of wine
filled with gratefulness and hope.
The faintest smell of sweetness
gathers at my nostrils
waiting for the next breath
to bring you inside
this intoxication.
In this moment I have the courage of language.
I have not forgotten how to sing
and I am dancing in the deepest awareness
of a love that has transformed everything.

We have walked into this field of daisies
a hundred thousand times to place our skins
next to each other.
Even in winter it is possible
to burn clean the place where our souls meet
with one single, compassionate kiss.
Even in the light of a clear day
our brilliance outshines the noon sun.

I am dreaming the violet aura of a crown again.
This time I am the queen of a gentle universe
crushed by the suffering of my people
being lifted off the distant minds of time.
From this primitive, silver place
we will all rise, holding tightly
to the promise of that absolute emptiness.

I sip slowly at my overflowing cup,
spilling this generous love over both our bodies—
unashamed of knowing the joy
of each moment of this mystery.

We have uncovered the miracle of eyes wide open,
awakened to knowing love
in the face of every living being.

When I hold you,
I hold the angels of each body
you’ve ever been
next to my lotus heart.
Out of these dark waters
has come what we know
is nothing but truth.

How Do We Color Love?

Step out on a clear December night
and look up past the shadows of tall pine,
the shape of smoke escaping the chimney
into the white hot stars
and you’ll realize it is impossible
to describe the color of love.

Try, if you will, to make the mind move
into the rustling sweetness of happiness,
kick your feet through those leaves of joy,
rake them into a pile of pleasure,
walk away and turn quickly
to run back into ecstasy
only to fall heavily, confused
to the cold frozen ground of expectation.

When I was a girl I stretched out in the warm
green grasses of shaded June afternoons
and imagined myself into the clouds
above the Minnesota prairies.
I could get there,
a little bird of hope,
resting at the edges of that misty whiteness,
it was where I first knew the infinity of the soul
rested only in my young body for a moment
and then it learned it must rise up to the call
of our mother’s loving voice.

When you close your eyes each night
at the end of a long day of trying
not to be swallowed
by the grief of all the strangers--
by planting the healing mind in the center
of each suffering heart—
what color do you see?

If I am lucky,
if I pay attention to the collective breath
of the gentle universe
in the stars of one clear December night,
I see the brilliant purple Aurora Borealis
start at the edge of my dreaming,
the ripple of beautiful forgiveness
for needing to know again
that this kind of enormous love
has no beginning
and no possible ending.
The crimson of this blood
will eventually run clear
without the sacrifice of one more child
in this kingdom of grey forgetfulness.

Perhaps it will be here,
in this place of calm abiding,
we will remember
the color of love.

As If We All Matter

In the dream this life is becoming,
I can only go gently from day to day
consorting, and sometimes dancing
with angels.

These heavenly beings are my cousins
in this incarnation,
sharing stories about the vibration
of the stars in the fibers that make up
the essence of our hearts

And our minds fly like hawks
to and from the roosts
we’ve made in the stony places
overlooking the oceans,
gleaming and fresh as we find the quickest passages
to the places love needs us most.

How can it be that just yesterday we flew past the dark face
of a crying child without compassion
toward the breast of a mother
aching t nurse her sleeping son to health?

We open all compassion for all children in the nipple she offers
to those small, pink lips.

How can it be true that in the place I am from
could deny bread to the sad, hungry eyes of a neighbor
on the way to put out the fire at a stranger’s home?

We hold the cup of cool water
to the parched mouth of all.

What safe haven, safe harbor
will we douse from heaven
for all the suffering to bathe in laughter
and safety,
heal in the quiet pools of kindness,
if we only notice a single drop of dew
forming on the edge of a leaf at dawn.

I must be willing to talk honestly
with my sister angels
to clear the sky of all clouds and darkness of doubt
to fly straight into the fear and ignorance
that blocks our vision of the truth.
There is too much to be done to be anything less
than magic and miracle
with each beam of light approaching this atmosphere
searching for hope.

I reach out both hands
to the other dreamers waking and acting
as if the God in each of us
really matters.

Accepting the Invitation to Dine

Even the wisest of my handmaidens
don’t understand the way this vibration,
this movement that starts just inside my mouth,
at the place where my lips come together in a smile,
at the epicenter of where all things kind
have changed forever,
this pulsation of truth,
is the source of forever.

Right here inside of my mouth
the universe is transforming herself
into something wonderful.
My tongue can’t help but find the edges
of this miracle ready to explode into every cell
of my body—I’m ready to depart on this journey
to the cessation of light into light.

Who could have imagined this would happen to me
in this lifetime, with this set of maps that anyone else
would confuse for directions to nowhere. North is not
where it seems to be. The heart is the only compass available.

But you knew, from the first time you saw me,
in this simple form of woman sitting unaware
in a place of no significance,
even blinded by the illusion of beauty,
you knew that I would be here facing this lonely path.
You knew the words before I spoke them
because you’ve traced them under your skin,
you’ve wrapped your wrists like a prisoner
with the vows of loving kindness,
you knew that you’ve promised
a thousand lifetimes
to help me find my way.

I wouldn’t ask you again
to this same place of sacrifice,
our children and our honor on the line
if it didn’t matter so much to the birth of another reality.
I wouldn’t ask you again if I didn’t feel your heart
continue to beat in my own chest
when I only stop long enough
to notice one breath.
I wouldn’t ask you to help me
if I didn’t know that you are the last key
on the ring that holds the answers to everything.

I am packing my bags carefully now
one item at a time. You know how it is
to leave again the place that has become home.
Why wouldn’t I want to choose carefully the garments
I’ll wear to the place we will meet.
Each morning I bathe as if I were the bride
preparing for my groom, careful to smooth
the roughness of each weary foot, arranging
my hair and perfuming my skin with goodness,
ready to accept the invitation to dine at this shared table.

There is no hurry now because I am no longer confused
about my place in the future or how to get there.
I have meditated quietly and have been answered.
You have opened the doors fully to the truth.
I am waiting for that love to bring you home.
This is where you will remember how to love me.
This is where we will openly seek our thanksgiving
and rejoice at the abundance we’ve become.

Circle

How can I tell you about the dimensions,
the circumference of these colors and fractions of fragrance
in these places that are no longer flat,
no longer round like the curves
of the horizon,
only wave after wave of life
crashing blue, green, and healing purples
against my skin.

The sky is constantly changing in front of my watchful eye.
I have learned to read these clouds, the graying smoke signals
of change, the dreams of all the people I have been—
the love that pounds messages from stone.
Delicate petals on the white places of promises.

You circle my mind like silver
wrapped around the small bones at my wrist,
priceless, with delicate instruction
in how to take a vow.
The heat of this sincerity burns my flesh
with truth. Ink pointed under the surface of cells
helps me remember even when the body is gone.

What kindness did I lay at your feet
when you were lost
to bring this unconditional desire?
Foamy resistance to nothing
as the quiet lapping of this miracle
slowly erodes my resolve,
breaks my heart open, gushing with thankfulness.
This is the fountain where I offer you
everything I will ever be.

Wise circles of jade and gold, pink quartz,
stone and metal unite in the breath we now share.
Come find nourishment here under this wing.
Come here to the place where the swirling universe must stop,
stand completely still
and bow to love’s absolute power.