Ancestral Wisdom
The elder spoke in a voice so light & airy
The child leaned close to hear.
The gentleness seemed as if
An angel spoke,
“Once people knew how to be.”
The child looked at the elder’s shoes
& Rubbed on the old wooden floor,
“Gran, how could people not know how to be?”
The elder stood as tall
as the many years would allow
& chortled while saying
“They knew to be rich or poor,
happy or sad, mom’s or dad’s, boy’s or girls,
but not how to be.”
As if learning to dance,
The child shuffled both feet wondering,
“How is it to be?”
Sitting, bending & swooping the child onto a knee
The elder preached in the still small voice of
Childhood’s conscience,
“The only way to be is forgiving.”
With a fidget, & a thought the child said,
“Gran, the church says Jesus forgives you,
& Christians are forgiven.”
In a voice sent only into the child’s ear,
The elder whispered soft so the child would strain to hear
& thus remember for ever,
“It is not forgives, forgiven or forgotten,
it is forgiving.
That is how to be.
Forgiving of me,
Of other,
And especially
Of your self.”
The child kissed the elder on an aged cheek,
“I love you Gran.”
The Lament to Believing
The first small Lie
That we tell ourselves,
That someone,
Something else
Is responsible for our happiness.
I wail as the moth sears its wing
Diving thru the candle,
Coming to rest on a shelve nearby.
I cringe with empathy
At how much that hurt.
I am sad that my
First beliefs
Were lies.
How does one
In so looking,
longing,
&
loving
The light
Dive into a flame?
No pain
no gain?
Kairos & Chronos
There are spots of time
distinct with presences of fruitful value.
Where imaginative powers
nourish and invisibly flowers.
To remember and speak
beyond our blind vision
into the sublime
still breathless still waters.
To bathe toes upon the slimy bottom.
Then push off to a float
in our source of life.
To be in and under water
To splash and laugh at how easy
beauty it all is.
Filling each moment with love
till I return to the sea once more.
I value being bad.
Not evil or sad,
But bad,
Nasty & mad.
Not hurtful or hateful
But full of piss & vinegar.
Acrid & Acid
With intent only on
Me, My & Mine.
Bad to the bone.
Marlene Dietrich I wanna be bad.
Bad for the last piece of cake,
Last sip of wine.
Judas bad.
It’s all about me Bad.
So what, I’m bad!
Phew, I’m so bad,
I’m glad I’m bad,
Even bad at
Being bad.
From the Delicacy of the Situation:
In bending down to reach beyond,
The delicate touch of a situation gone.
How ripe the feel of interest to unpeel
Of thoughts arisen stepping out of prison.
The day bright and night long
Who felled the interest of one who’s gone?
I called forth the mind of all to see the touch
And hear the feel of passions thought as love unreels
Answers flow with loud nights as cold sky’s wall leap
The Situation becomes a delicacy.
To an unknown muse on an uncharted channel.
Finesse
It wasn’t just the effort,
it was the feel, we looked for.
Finesse, the subtle use of skill.
Touch-Sight-Sound-Smell-Feel-
eye & hand,
eye in hand,
coordinate waves
cresting peaks
falling slides
throwing catches
tossing, tossing, tossing.
Poised styles effortless in defiance of gravity
Dancing BALL (ER IN A),
Patient readiness.
The third baseman
dives left, snags the ball on one hop,
snaps up & all in one motion catches & throws.
SNARED
It was the little Tin Drummer
playing those tunes that touched our heart
I’m an Old Cowhand
Home on the Range
Red River Valley
His assistant passed out
a Walla Walla Sweet Onion
& we peeled tears.
An onion peel romancer
jerking a tear
from your heart
feeding soul food
as filling
as chocolate cake,
T-Bone steak,
Stir Fried Tofu.
They came out from
near & far
to hear
the rap-a-tap drum
& feel the drip
& remember why
they were here.
For a heart never opened so wide
as when a choir of criers
shed the tears of their soul
peeling an onion down to nothing
to the rap-a-tap
Tin Drum of Amazing Grace.
