Frog in the Gutter



Base notes twist from the gutter
of the farm house, on the hill overlooking
the long field, where in the morning
the beaming face of the sun
slips between the tall firs,
and here is where the magic
happens, a gold pathway
opens along one edge of the field.
A narrow strip of rising light
in the expired towers
of summer grass, and a few
exploded dandelions,
lamp posts
offering their own
brief flame.

water




Hurry,
before I melt like a good witch
in front of the poem
and you,

barely materialized
from pieces of memory and wish.

Have no fear,
I am not hungry, just alone
and if you have no fear of heights

we should be good.

For flying is my invisible passion,
it could be yours. Here though,
earth-bound with an aching wrist
I sit,

turning paper into water.

Dancing Raven



Being the mud meteors fall into
and light catchers dancing with strangers
we align ourselves to Spirit.

What pulls us apart reintroducing
the voice we have forgotten
is the pleading of others.

The woman tells of the body scan
tomorrow of the book of her lungs,
wide hands stretching open and closed.

The clock of her life keeps perfect moments.
Yet it creates a kind of mud she can't rise from.
The small flood of water where the air
should be.

She reminds us of the answers she seeks
we hold for her and ourselves. The beauty
of our perfection. Vulnerability. If
something can work this effortlessly
or stop, then we can stop. There is
a beginning and an ending.

If the glorious dark raven of her body
should fold its wings, then we all
may line the branches in grief.

If raven mounts the muscle of wind,
she carries ceremonial energy to its destination.
Healing comes with the magic of change.

Come, in raven's journey, all things are possible.
Behind the dark door of everything,
comes the calling of the Ancients.





for healing to Wings

Black Dog and the Green Umbrella

My brain makes up poetry in a river from the dome
of its pink cave, and I hear it as undercurrent of singing.
In the undertow my heart gets pulled along.
Sometimes I believe that poems are a liquid grief.
I shape the linen of words, pin them to clotheslines,
watch as they dry.

The small black dog sleeps soundly beside me.

We watch the movie of the playwright Oakley Hall III,
who falls from a bridge to the stones below. Someone
from Seattle may have pushed him, or he fell in drunken
anger. And his boundless life of words, rising from a farm in the
Catskill Mountains, begins to go away.

This poem is not about the bridge, or the river,
nor even the stones who count the rain, arranging themselves
into a sort of pattern and harmony, never once considering
they would catch such a heavy, miserable soul.

This poem is not about the brilliant part of Oakley's brain,
his forgotten life, floating up into the gray and suspended air.
Later he pretends to know, like me, when he really can't remember.
Someone finds him, who knows how to love him as he is.

This poem is about the new Oakley, who like Lewis and Clark,
begins to name the unnamed. It is about the slowly discovered,
remaining parts of him, though lopsided, which are finally peaceful.
It's about what comes after the genius of what he lost in the damp
light of the river. It's about his new words from the cabin and his
untethered soul, more than the bright bridge and the stones,
still inscribing small plays into the sand.

The band practices in the living room. I watch the movie
on the bed with a headphone, a warm thigh along the
dog's curved back. Out on the patio under the green umbrella
the boys smoke and talk and drink beer.The harvest moon
is so full I almost thought it would burst, perched
perfectly rounded and silent
behind the power lines.

from Body Mind Balancing
by Osho


Once you start communicating with your body,
things become very easy. The body need not be
forced, it can be persuaded. One need not fight
with the body--that's ugly, violent, aggressive,
and any sort of conflict is going to create more
and more tension. So you need not be in any
conflict--let comfort be the rule. And the body
is such a beautiful gift from God that to fight
with it is to deny God Himself. It is a shrine....
we are enshrined in it; it is a temple. We exist
in it and we have to take every care of it--
it is our responsibility.

Earth Imagining Her Life



A leaf of grass. Still. Green river
comes down over me from the village of trees.
Summer is the long body of the earth
under the sun her lover. He can't bear
to stay away. He hovers over her
pouring heat in a love song.

This year the time is short
and she wearies imagining her life
as somewhere else, young and
running on stars, burning around the edges,

forming herself into another place
where she gives birth with every breath.
She sets us all free as she cracks
and heaves. Her fires plume

the only reminder
of the bone of these ancient
and remaining days.





for our mother the earth

Cathedral


Over the cathedral the eyes of God fall,
their gold water carrying stars and songs.
The eaglets still carry the night on their backs.
Slowly they stand

and stretch the bone and bouquet
of their wings. My face warms
in the gold light and the language
of their calling.

Alexandra hops and slides across the nest,
wings spread upward. She lifts and lands
on the runway, teeters and wobbles as talons
scrape the old branch.

David watches and imagines himself
far up in the air. He opens and closes
brown sails.

For hours we watch close and invisible.
Words in small lines color the lisping breeze,
and our thoughts loop onto snags and the top
of Douglas firs where they hesitate.

I think, and the space enlarges; we wait,
and all things are possible. We do not own
this nest, this place of nature, we are
the guests, the honored ones.

Bear Medicine


Notes from: "Medicine Cards"
by Jamie Sams & David Carson


Introspection is the strength of Bear medicine. By attuning
yourself to the energy of the Eternal Mother, you enter
the cave becoming like Bear. There we receive nourishment
from the Great Void. All answers live in harmony with the
questions of our life in the Great Void. These answers
to our questions reside within us. We are able to quiet
our mind, and know as we enter the silence.

The place of inner-knowing is called the Dream Lodge.
There ancestors show us different pathways which
lead to our goals. The power of Bear comes from this
place.

Bear walks the path of silence, calming internal voices,
to the rite of passage. This channel is where you find the
pathway to the Dream Lodge, where higher imagination and
ways of being are available.

Accepting the gift of Bear medicine, you are invited
to explore the Dream Lodge. From that place, your
longings become rooted in the physical world.
This is the strength of Bear.

Messenger of the Dreamtime




The whale rock thinks while waiting
for the warming tide laden with green gifts.
Murmers from the sea.

The sheer sheet of the sky is almost blank
holding the ocean's mirror.

The wings have all gone northward. White crowns
and hems. A thousand words from a thousand songs.
Carriers of mariner letters through the dreamtime.

Touched as we are by eagles we stayed. Unknowingly
pinning thoughts to the sky. Effortlessly
the eagles picked them up.

Words drawn into feathers and lifted
by the hollow flame of wind. Can't you see
what you have done?

Your little notes passengered by eagles
through a filmy door, enter the silence
of Great Spirit's dreaming.