Today I Am Here To Understand
Each word is the work of something further to say
Each imagination a hint of something fundamental to see
Each line of thought searches the view
And each conclusion includes the horizon
Were I to read the world this way
I’d slowly see who I am meant to be on earth
And were I to read myself this way
I’d know for sure I’m inseparable from life
O Root My Route
There is no one word
to sum the sun to sum
the morning world outside
No one word
to all describe
just what on earth
am I and life
The whole of sun
pervades the all
throughout the dark
and universal
Not one word but yes
it speaks
within as light
of everything
And I who listen and open
doors see love
is what this world is for
A Short True Poem
So, here we all are, each on various paths
while at the root of these paths
we are nowhere
divergent
I’ve Got To Start Somewhere
The world is infused
with life and I
must come to see this I will
one day wake with the light
and the sun speaking will ask me
what I think and I will think
a bit further than yesterday
when my eyes were shut and my ears
did not hear as birds fly by
the words of light this world infused
with all of life and I
at that moment beginning to know
will be at once someone new
Found Poem # One
A glass of water
a loaf
of bread
a patch
of light
Found Poem # Two
I pause to see
the doves on the ground
where I am
and the wonder
of us being here
as the does fly off
Someone I’ve Never Been
Nothing you say will make a difference
in me the sky is blue
when I see it blue and when
I see darkness the sun is gone
Mine is the only way to go forward
in life a tree I know keeps growing
through wars and sorrows how
it is able I don’t know and why
These brown gleaming snails
in the brief morning dew
There are words a language that is not mine
and when I learn it and speak it and my soul
suffers the loss of its exclusive self
I will be able to say that I now understand change
And I will be someone
I have never been before
A Stranger’s Story
When I was a young man I lived my life
in a blur a circular
place of unknowing
Not as a child as a child I woke
each morning holding secrets like friends
and we played together but later when the sun set
I was lost I walked unfamiliar in the night
everywhere away a wayward
uprooted soul out of life
Till one closed unrecognizable day however old
I was I was for all I knew
a stranger
Not betrayed
by the world
but betraying myself
And I said and I said and I said no more
of this I said
not one day more
I wanted to stop
with who I wasn’t and get on
with who I was meant to be
I remember standing by the water
a bridge across it and me
watching cars leave the island
They were going somewhere and the sun
there as if alive for me it shone
in my eyes through trees ah sun
Flower the voice of light blossomed
inside go be dark
no more it said
Know for yourself this is the day
you wake and see and then it said
know more
Long while back
one heavy afternoon
l picked up a dead rabbit
from the side of the road
the soul of the rabbit
did not tire me with its light
and I knew I was made
to see how far I would go
Order of Operations
You tell me there are numerous things
to take care of in our world big problems
that ask us to think from the root of all life
I tell you I just want to find a place
to recharge my phone I am numb
to it all my experience and the bombs that fall
prove me powerless
in the face of adversity
and still you insist that I am
the true power that will overcome
this dysfunction with life you say
the route to peace and purpose is love and how
love is who I must become and maybe
you are right but first I’ve got to recharge
my phone
The World
See the soft reckoning of wheat
to be harvested
who wouldn’t be strengthened
by what the world offers
Golden seedheads grow
in me an inseparable hold
even the dead sow their souls
inside if I listen
And I see a father and daughter
hand in hand as they walk
shy their hats keep them
from the sun yet they are light
Look they are light and then they are gone
out of sight it never once startles me
that in a universe of self-interest and entropy
there is all the more love
My Soul Rises to the Occasion
Some days I speak with consciousness
other times my old friend
doubt steps in filing charges against the world
And then I am nobody
much less than a frog
bogged down in the muck of things
Tonight these stars of the night sky sing they have
no idea who I am yet they stir
a story of existence that resounds in my soul
And I see this harvest of light
I am this business of my being here
in all manner of mire and meeting in all acts
Approaching love the livelong day
that were I to advertise it to others
we would all buy fearlessly into life
Ah, Reality
A secret with open arms
it does not desire
mysteriousness
it welcomes you
The sun on your arm
the grass at your feet
the eyes of the red
fox fleetingly
Reality is an offering
the greeting of life
given to you
like a bracelet a band
Of many colors it encourages
friendship in your soul
which is a place
where you behold things
Listen to how
all life makes you feel
wishful wanting and when
will you know
Do not fall in love
with mystery nor the every
detail of information
in the presentation of our world
Refine your understanding
re-find connection
Bird Cat World
For a moment I hold it one small bird
in my hand a broken neck a half open
eye a now silent breast light grey
like the overcast sky and I too am quiet
learning to move beyond this sadness I am the sky and I
am the earth this bird that cat the living
and dead I am the moment and am
someone I wasn’t a moment before
Look at the cat looking back from the brush
I bow my head to the grey body in my palm
and I want to be where I am I am
part of this world one light becomes another
I don’t know why the world affects me
and then I do I see it unbroken and hold it
in my heart and I may help it
to go on
All the more beings
in the chorus of life
sing of reality
and do you
on earth
at the open window
apple blossoms blooming
unable to look away
hear it
I am
is the voice
of all things
great and small
that wishes to speak
the essence
that in truth
we each are
After the Death of You, My Love
Today I am together I do not grieve
so much your missing voice the last word
you ever wrote on a birch paper heart the bark
of our tree is fruited with light I’m wholly
with you propped among stunned here glistening
drops of last night’s rain gleam as all
these suns and I will not pry to find you
gladly I will not stone this day unbroken
is how some people are every hour and every hour
when I can’t do this anymore I know
someone sweet whose immeasurable love
ever supports me reminding me that I am
This seed this say this soul I am
I think therefore I open
I grow I move beyond
myself I must change
who I am so to forge
my humanity and to give
the fruit of my being to love
Seven Day Exercise
I share the shadow sky
quiet with the stars I wish
those stars would tell me what to do
so to live as I must and not just
meld with the dark before dawn
I have not done this well I have not
known the world I live in well enough
and in silence I dip into
the stars into my unknowingness
and fall
Deep within the spacious
nest of being a distant buzz
like bees I beckon
and dwell in my questions
I lengthen my hope
I live for this life
and the returning caress
that comes from the waking
day day day day day day day
The first glow of sun ah the singing
redwing blackbirds and I thirst
for what still sleeps in my heart the sun
whose work I’m here to do
the morning light on leaves and me
And as I stretch my voice
wanders to the world I am
spring yellow flowers I’m waxwings I’m sparrows
I am whatever I’m here to do my room is wide
brightening sky the whole of life
I tell myself this
I whisper just listen
enlightened have right words to say
Justice
It is just us
each one of us
doing what is right
for all of life
Early Morning / Looking for Answers
What do I call this infinite
loneliness or am I
seeing it wrong the world these woods
this complete morning quiet the sun
through the trees after a late-night rain
the long summer drought is not yet over
though the wet leaf words gleam
grateful and green before autumn
and the shallow rooted ferns are happy
to drink but what do I know
I am alone out here and the ferns
don’t say much to me the life
of others is far from my reach the stillness
around these parts grows thick and we
the people wherever we are
keep crying to be held so many in the world and I wonder
have these trees too forgotten how
to engage have they forgotten
how to work with others and how to solve
life problems
it takes effort and if you don’t have the effort
to give you might feel in need of restoration a place to be
yourself in the world these woods quiet
among the black birches and oaks heaven
is the place you can be yourself hell
is the place you cannot that rock
outcropping with its lichens and moss
what do I call this loneliness
in the woods is the woodland wishing
to be seen the same as anyone how
beautiful you are in your dark branches
and leaves how infinite
emptiness in the world is the self that needs to be
one of a kind and one with others to be
one who is kindred with life
as the sun here that shines through
the twisting vines and I
like the sun am my own path the light
of my being that sees you and holds you
just as you are in the ongoing world
Love it seems
takes a lot more work
Love it seems takes a world
of understanding
Because in the future
I’ll move more life’s way
that’s why I live
for tomorrow today
When I wake in the morning
and there the sun
every word to the day
is the being love
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